The rest of the leading spots on the domestic chart were occupied by new premieres -- the animated Christian film David (No. 2), erotic thriller The Housemaid (No. 3), and comical family film The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants (No. 4).
Be thrilled, be grateful, be anything you like -- but don't be surprised that Avatar: Fire and Ash just broke the bank at the weekend box office.
The third in James Cameron's planned five-part saga got a great start domestically with $88 million in its premiere weekend, but shot to the moon and back globally with $345 million by the time Sunday rolled around, per Comscore.
That domestic figure marks a fairly significant downturn from its predecessor, 2022's Avatar: The Way of Water, which summoned $134 million over the course of its premiere weekend. But it does tick up from 2009's franchise starter, which earned $77 million. Each Avatar film has launched the weekend before Christmas, and parts 1 and 2 have proven to have long, long legs, racking up hundreds of millions in their walks into and through the new year.
That means 2025 is well and redeemed at the domestic box office, despite long, slow stretches, and a worryingly fallow summer. Fire and Ash's premiere marks the fifth major groundswell at U.S. theaters in as many weeks, following the releases of Wicked: For Good, Zootopia 2, and Five Nights at Freddy's 2, which currently boast a combined gross in excess of $700 million.
Speaking of eye-popping combined grosses, Cameron's Avatar franchise has now earned over $5.6 billion at the global box office, breaking every conceivable record for franchise profitability.
Still, Fire and Ash's monumental global premiere figure didn't eclipse the records set by Zootopia 2, which started with $556 million, and China's animated mythic epic Ne Zha 2, which premiered to $431 million.
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Wicked: For Good, Zootopia 2, and Five Nights at Freddy's 2 are all still going strong at five, four, and three weeks in theaters, respectively. But even more good box office news came this week in the fact of their all being sidelined to three additional new premieres.
The Christian production house Angel Studios, a newly minted major player in town, released the PG-rated animated musical David to silver medal success on the domestic charts, with a $22 million premiere take. The family-friendly take on the iconic tale of David and Goliath also registered internationally at No. 3 despite only opening in two additional territories -- Canada and Australia.
At No. 3, Lionsgate scored a surprising win with the erotic thriller The Housemaid, starring Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried. The adaptation of the bestseller by Freida McFadden opened to $19 million across just over 3,000 theaters for a strong per-theater-average of $6,032. Finally, at No. 4 was The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants. The animated romp featuring the voices of George Lopez, Mark Hamill, and rapper Ice Spice earned $16 million in its domestic debut.
For the first time in over a month, next weekend's roster of new releases doesn't include any obvious breakaway hits. Avatar, Wicked, and Zootopia were all sure things, but that doesn't mean Song Sung Blue can't surprise us all.
Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson star as Mike and Claire Sardina, a couple who perform in a Neil Diamond tribute band called Lightning & Thunder, in the latest from Hustle & Flow and Coming 2 America director Craig Brewer.
"This is actually what a real love story is," Brewer said of a preview scene shared exclusively with Entertainment Weekly in November. "You have this fantastic beginning to a relationship. There's music, there's fireworks, and then you decide to share a life with each other and share a home with each other. And then life starts happening, and that's when tragedy starts to happen. That's when heartbreak begins to happen. And the idyllic dream of what you went into with rose-tinted glasses begins to get cracks in them."
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