FRIDAY PM: If all goes right for 20th Century Studios’ Avatar: Fire and Ash this weekend, in addition to crossing $1 billion worldwide, the James Cameron directed sci-fi movie will cross the $300M threshold stateside. Tonight, we’re hearing the pic’s third weekend is around $35M at 3,835 theaters, -44%, after a $13.4M Friday, which will get the threequel to $301M by Sunday.
Avatar: Way of Water‘s third weekend was Dec. 30-Jan 1, which did $67.4M (+4%), while its first weekend of 2023, technically the sequel’s fourth frame, grossed $45.8M (-32%). In hindsight, it’s interesting how well Way of Water hung in there, despite everyone miss-comping the title to Spider-Man: No Way Home, and the misperception that the sequel actually opened under projections. The original Avatar‘s third weekend fell on the first frame of the New Year 2010, that’s when the pic grossed $68.4M.
Today there were 94% K-12 schools on break and 97% colleges on break according to ComScore. Those numbers eases to 45% K-12 out and 84% colleges on break on Monday, which is still great for the movie business.
Zootopia 2 is the gift that keeps on giving for Disney with a sixth weekend of $17M at 3,285 theaters, -14%, after a $6.6M Friday. Cume by EOD Sunday is $361.6M. That sixth weekend is more than Moana 2‘s a year ago, which did $12.4M, however, that sequel was bigger out of the gate than Zootopia 2 by $66.6M with a running cume through its sixth Sunday of $425.2M. Still a fantastic hold by Zootopia 2 versus Moana 2‘s -34% a year ago.
Amanda Seyfried in ‘The Housemaid‘
Daniel McFadden/Lionsgate
Lionsgate’s The Housemaid is currently claiming third with $12M+ at 3,070 theaters, -22%, after a $4.6M Friday. Total by Sunday for the Paul Feig directed thriller, Hidden Pictures production is $72.8M, which will be far past the filmmaker’s previous Lionsgate black comedy, A Simple Favor, which ended its stateside run at $53.5M.
MARTY SUPREME, from left: Gwyneth Paltrow, Timothee Chalamet, 2025. © A24 / Courtesy Everett Collection
A24’s Marty Supreme from Josh Safdie will pass the final domestic take of the Safdie brothers’ previous 2019 movie together, Uncut Gems ($50M), this weekend, which is the distributor’s third highest grossing title at the domestic B.O. A $4M Friday will get Marty to between $9M-$10M at 2,887 sites, -39%, in its third frame and on the high end, a running total of $53.4M back in 2018.
Fifth is Sony’s Anaconda with a second weekend of $8M at 3,509 locations, -45%, after a $3.1M Friday for a running total of $43.8M.
Sixth belongs to Angel Studios’ David at 2,900 locations with a third Friday of $2.9M, third weekend of $7.4M, -41%, for a running total of $69.4M.
Seventh is coming in with Paramount’s SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants third weekend of $7.2M at 3,217, -35%, after $2.9M Friday for a total of $56.6M.
The second weekend of Focus Features’ Song Sung Blue is $4.7M at 2,705 sites, -34%, for a running cume of $23.8M in 8th place. The second Friday for the Hugh Jackman-Kate Hudson Neil Diamond tribute band movie is $1.8M.