Disney and 20th Century’s AVATAR: FIRE AND ASH led all films at the box office by bringing in $21.3M. James Cameron’s sci-fi sequel has held the top spot for all four weekends it has played in theatres. Substantial support came from two new movies, Paramount’s PRIMATE, which contributed $11.3M, and Lionsgate’s GREENLAND 2: MIGRATION, with $8.5M. Lionsgate’s THE HOUSEMAID with $11.2M in its fourth weekend and Disney’s ZOOTOPIA 2 with $7.1M in its seventh weekend chipped in admirably. The total weekend box office amounted to $98.6M.
Both weekends in 2026 have bested those same weekends last year. On weekend #2 in 2025, another Gerard Butler film, DEN OF THIEVES: PANTERA, from Lionsgate, was the top-grossing movie with $15.0M in its opening. The total box office for that weekend was $78.6M. Weekend #2 in 2026 has produced 125% of the total box office from the same weekend last year.
If it seems as if we are making a big deal about the winning start to 2026, we are. In fact, production from every week this year will be important if the overall box office is to go up by $1B or more compared to $8.6B in 2025. Last year’s Q1 was very slow, with the lowest box office of any quarter in the post-pandemic period. Now is the time to take advantage of the easier week-to-week, year-over-year comps.
Next weekend, we expect the momentum to continue with the opening of Sony’s 28 YEARS LATER: THE BONE TEMPLE, one of the most anticipated films of the first quarter. It won’t be a cakewalk to match last year’s box office, when Sony’s ONE OF THEM DAYS opened at with 11.8M and WOLFMAN from Universal took in $10.9M. Last year’s MLK holiday weekend brought in a total box office of $77.7M for the three days.
FIRST PLACE
Even though AVATAR: FIRE AND ASH dropped 49% from last weekend, its $21.4M was still good enough for a first-place finish. This takes its 24-day totals to $342.6M domestically and $1.231B worldwide. We expect this to be the last weekend FIRE AND ASH will be able to hold onto first place. Next Friday is the beginning of MLK weekend, and Sony’s 28 DAYS LATER: THE BONE TEMPLE should open well and claim the top spot.
If that happens, it will be the earliest instance among the three AVATAR movies where first place was relinquished. AVATAR held the top spot for seven consecutive weeks, giving the crown to DEAR JOHN from Screen Gems when it opened with $30.5M in its debut weekend from February 5-7, 2010. AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER lasted for seven consecutive weekends as well, knocked off by Universal’s KNOCK AT THE CABIN with $14.1M in its opening weekend from February 3-5, 2023.
This is emblematic of AVATAR: FIRE AND ASH’s lower performance compared to the two previous AVATAR movies. To-date, FIRE AND ASH is falling further behind chapters 1 and 2, grossing only 80% and 66% respectively after 24 days. Just last weekend, those comparisons stood at 87% and 72%, so the trend is downward. We are expecting FIRE AND ASH to wind up with approximately $385M domestic and $1.4B globally.
That would give it a ratio of 3.5 in worldwide box office to 1 for its production budget, still profitable but not in the same league as the first two AVATARs. AVATAR earned $2.9B globally, THE WAY OF WATER earned $2.3M, and FIRE AND ASH will finish with around $1.4B. While all three movies have generated huge sales by any standard, the steady decline is concerning and may influence decisions about making AVATAR 4 and AVATAR 5.
AVATAR Movies after 24 Days
SECOND PLACE
Paramount’s PRIMATE opened with $11.3M in its first three days and claimed second place for the weekend. This gore-filled chimp-gone-wild horror film was directed by Johannes Roberts, known for creating tense action on a low budget. His best-known works to date were RESIDENT EVIL: WELCOME TO RACOON CITY in 2021, 47 METERS DOWN in 2017, and THE STRANGERS: PREY AT NIGHT in 2018. In addition to directing the movie, Roberts was also the screenwriter for PRIMATE, which is just as well since the ending of the script was completely rewritten one week before filming began.
If Roberts had not been the screenwriter, this would have delayed the beginning of filming. Roberts explained that the last-minute change was not driven by studio handlers but instead by how flat the story felt during initial table reads. He rewrote the final scenes to make it more impactful and smarter, and to steer away from tropes of other animal-driven horror movies made before.
PRIMATE’s storyline follows a small group of vacationers who go on a retreat to an isolated Hawaiian estate after one of the group inherits the property from a reclusive primatologist. The getaway is meant to be restorative – sun, ocean, and silence – but the house carries a disturbing secret. Years earlier, the scientist who passed down the estate conducted experiments on a chimpanzee who was infected with a mutated strain of rabies in an attempt to study aggression and intelligence under stress.
When the chimp escapes its containment and reappears near the estate, the group dismisses the threat initially, assuming the animal is injured and harmless. That illusion collapses as the chimp begins to attack the party deliberately, using its strength, speed, and animal cunning. With electric power and communication cut off, the survivors must confront the reality that they are being hunted by a terrifying and purposeful beast.
The star of the movie is the killer chimp Ben, brought to life by movement specialist Miguel Torres Umba in makeup and suit work rather than using an actual animal or CGI. After a number of recent true stories of aggressive primates, Paramount executives were said to be nervous to greenlight this movie, worrying that audiences could “turn against” them or simply stay away altogether. The swimming pool at the house is a key element in the plot because of a chimp’s natural fear of deep water.
In the story, the pool becomes a safety zone for the human characters, as long as they can somehow make it there. Troy Kotsur was cast in the role of Adam, a deaf author and owner of the chimp Ben. Born deaf himself, Kotsur won an Oscar for his performance in CODA from 2021, in which he also played a hearing-disabled character. PRIMATE features unique scenes without sound.
The film was shot in less than two months at the end of 2024, with principal photography taking place from September to early November. Because of the onslaught of horror films released in 2025, Paramount opted to allow Roberts plenty of time to complete his movie and picked the second weekend in 2026 to open the film. This strategy appears to have paid off, as its opening weekend has more than met expectations.
Reviews for the film are mostly positive, with critics on Rotten Tomatoes scoring it 78% while audiences have weighed in at 73%. Here are a few of the critics’ reviews. Variety said, “Is PRIMATE a slickly executed piece of slaughterhouse shlock? Very much so. Yet Ben, as a slasher, represents a minor triumph of practical effects.” Roger Ebert.com takes the view that “It’s a flimsy series of contrivances to get a shockingly realistic ape to rip the faces off of stupid human beings in increasingly creative ways. What more do you want, really?” The Film Verdict says, “Doesn’t necessarily hold up to a lot of scrutiny, but for sheer horror pleasure and monster-movie squirms, this silly monkey movie delivers the goods.” The Los Angeles Times went low by saying, “One chimpanzee with a typewriter could pound out the script for ‘Primate’ in an hour.”
When you bring on Johannes Roberts to direct a horror film, you get a movie that scares audiences without having to throw money away. He specializes in making movies that cost somewhere between $10M and $20M and bring in a box office multiple of 3, 4, or 5.
PRIMATE cost only $12M to make, and will need only $30M worldwide to break even. We expect that amount to be in the till by the end of its second weekend. For comparison, we look to the 2025 horror film THE MONKEY. While one movie stars a vicious chimpanzee and the other an ominous stuffed monkey, both key characters are primates, and both movies were made on a very tight budget. Here is how the battle of the primates shapes up.
PRIMATE vs. THE MONKEY
THIRD PLACE
Lionsgate’s psychological thriller THE HOUSEMAID had another great weekend, adding $11.2 to its total while dropping 25%. This brings its 24-day tally to $94.2M domestically and $192.5M worldwide. The film has risen to the highest domestic-grossing movie of Sydney Sweeney’s career, surpassing the 2023 romantic comedy ANYONE BUT YOU, which earned $88.3M in North America. That also became the highest-grossing rom-com in the post-pandemic period. THE HOUSEMAID should pass $100M domestic by the end of next weekend.
ANYONE BUT YOU finished with a worldwide box office of $220.3M, and that will likely keep it in first place globally for movies starring the young actress. THE HOUSEMAID has earned only $98.3M in foreign territories so far, compared with the $132.0M earned by ANYONE BUT YOU. We attribute this relative difference in international results to the strength of rom-com movies internationally, compared to psychological thrillers.
Last weekend, we highlighted the newsworthy year that Sweeney had in 2025, and… well… why not hold onto that spotlight in 2026? Sweeney drew renewed attention last week when she appeared in W Magazine’s Annual Best Performances issue in a nearly naked state, covered head-to-toe in metallic gold body paint. It was a portrait reminiscent of Marilyn Monroe and the pinups of Hollywood’s past. Did this magazine appearance help the weekend box office for her current movie? We’re certain that Lionsgate has no problem at all with Sweeney’s attention-grabbing appearance.
THE HOUSEMAID vs. A SIMPLE FAVOR
FOURTH PLACE
Disney’s ZOOTOPIA 2 finished in fourth place in its seventh weekend with $10.1M, a drop of 48% from last weekend. This brings its 47-day total to $378.8M domestically and $1.655 worldwide. The continuing success of ZOOTOPIA 2 has allowed it to climb the all-time ranks of animated movies, now sitting in 14th place domestically behind SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE, which earned $380.3M in 2023. Internationally, it has been a stand-out performer, ranking third all-time for U.S.-produced animated movies. At this time, its ratio of worldwide gross to production cost is an eye-popping 11 to 1.
ZOOTOPIA 2 vs. ZOOTOPIA after 47 Days
FIFTH PLACE
Lionsgate’s GREENLAND 2: MIGRATION finished in fifth place with $8.5M in its opening. This is a sequel to the 2020 film GREENLAND, which had a peculiar theatrical run but still managed to earn $52.3M in worldwide gross. The original GREENLAND was released in Belgium first on July 29, 2020, and went on from there to play in several additional foreign markets.
It never came to North American theatres, with the film coming out in the summer of 2020, just months after the arrival of COVID-19 in March. After bypassing theatres, GREENLAND debuted as a PVOD rental on December 18, 2020. It ranked near or at the top of the charts for weeks after its online release.
The PVOD money plus international box office is estimated to have been around $80M. After spending $35M to make the movie, it came in just below the break-even level of $88M. This was a big picture for STX, and who knows what it would have done if its position in the release calendar had been more favorable. In August 2023, after Lionsgate failed to acquire STX, the two companies came to an agreement through which Lionsgate would act as STX’s domestic distributor for theatrical releases and library titles.
Given the encouraging performance of GREENLAND under difficult conditions, both STX and Lionsgate agreed to proceed with a sequel, which started principal photography in August 2025. The film was directed by Ric Roman Waugh, known for making action thrillers. He directed the original GREENLAND and has worked with the lead actor Gerard Butler on ANGEL HAS FALLEN in 2019.
The storyline of GREENLAND 2: MIGRATION picks up a decade after the comet impact that ended civilization in the first film. Some have survived underground in massive bunkers, including the Greenland facility that saved the Garrity family. With Earth’s surface slowly becoming habitable again, governments organize a mass relocation known as Migration to move survivors out of their bunkers and toward areas believed to be capable of sustaining life.
John Garrity (Gerard Butler), his wife Allison (Morena Baccarin in the DEADPOOL trilogy), and their now-teenage son Nathan (Roman Griffin Davis in THE LONG WALK from 2025) join a perilous expedition across a devastated, lawless landscape. The world above is scarred by the original crater impact, unstable weather, radiation zones, and survivor factions competing for scarce resources. As the organization and authority break down, the Garrity family is forced to navigate violent encounters, moral dilemmas, and the psychological toll of rebuilding society from scratch.
Unlike the first film’s race-against-the-clock narrative, MIGRATION is more contemplative and survival-focused, emphasizing endurance and trust, and reflective about whether humanity deserves a second chance. The journey becomes less about reaching a destination and more about redefining family, community, and hope in a permanently altered world. While Greenland is part of the setting of the second film, most of the movie deals with travel across the world to explore other areas that have survived.
Most viewers enjoyed the original, with critics more supportive with a 77% score on Rotten Tomatoes and audiences coming in at 63%. This time out, the response has not been as positive, with a 56% rating from critics and 65% from audiences. Here is a sample of what the critics are saying. The Detroit News said, “GREENLAND 2 is a strictly second-tier affair, with neither the special effects nor the set-ups raising the pulse of the on-screen action.” Variety suggests that, “GREENLAND 2: MIGRATION is one of the soggiest excuses for a sequel in memory.
The first GREENLAND, released at the end of 2020, was an environmental disaster movie. The new one is a post-disaster slog.” IndieWire weighs in with, “To its significant detriment, ‘Migration’ is a far more generic and action-oriented movie than its predecessor, which had the benefit of watching civilization get pulled apart at the seams.” It is not all bad as The New York Times stays positive with, “Though this sequel’s brisk plot hits familiar postapocalyptic beats, Waugh strikes them with immense force.”
The film seems to have fallen into a trap that befalls many sequels. Having made the original for $35M, director Ric Roman Waugh somehow needed almost triple that amount at $90M to make the sequel only six years later. While the original found some success under difficult circumstances, that film did not point to a sequel being able to earn the $225M necessary for this movie to be profitable. The opening weekend performance of only $8.5M has consigned GREENLAND 2 to a loss-making effort. For a more realistic comparison, we are lining up GREENLAND 2: MIGRATION with ANGEL HAS FALLEN, another film directed by Waugh and starring Gerard Butler.
GREENLAND 2 MIGRATION vs. ANGEL HAS FALLEN
Where Are We as of 1/8/2026
After the first week of 2026, the current year’s domestic box office stands at 128% compared with 2025, 158% compared with 2024, and 127% compared with 2023.
