Avatar: Fire and Ash is ringing in the new year right as the feature continues to dominate the domestic box office during the first weekend of 2026. The latest James Cameron Na’vi installment grossed approximately $40 million from 3,825 North American movie theaters in the third week of release, which is a decline of 35% from the post-Christmas frame. After 18 days in theaters, the film has grossed $306 million domestically and $1.08 billion worldwide.
This is the slowest that an Avatar film has crossed the billion-dollar milestone: the original Avatar crossed the line in 17 days, while Avatar: The Way of Water crossed the coveted benchmark in 14 days. Will Fire and Ash remain at the top of the box office and surpass the $2 billion mark like its predecessors, or will it burn out quickly? Only time will tell, but something tells me that the first possibility is the right answer.
Disney’s Zootopia 2 is still in No. 2 with $19 million in ticket sales from 3,285 theaters, a 4% drop from last weekends. The animated sequel has recently become Disney’s “highest-grossing movie of all time”, culminating a total of $363 million domestically and $1.588 billion globally, outperforming the former first-place holder Frozen 2’s $1.45 billion. Lionsgate’s thriller The Housemaid rose to No. 3 with a total of $15.2 million from 3,070 venues, a minuscule decline of 1% from last weekends. The feature, an adaptation of the 2022 Freida McFadden novel, stars Amanda Seyfried and Sydney Sweeney and can be considered a box-office success, grossing $133 million worldwide against a $35 million budget.
A24’s Marty Supreme is No.4 with $12.5 million from 2,887 screens, which is a notable decline of 30% following the post-Christmas frame. The Josh Safdie-directed ping pong dramedy has earned $56 million domestically, outperforming Safdie’s prior A24 film Uncut Gems and earning the Timothee Chalamet-led feature a spot on A24’s biggest movies of all-time list. Though a good box-office result, Marty Supreme will need to continue to draw ticket sales this new year to break even against the $70 million it cost to produce. While No. 5 remained Sony’s comedy, starring Jack Black and Paul Rudd, Anaconda grossed $10 million from 3,509 venues, a 31% drop from last weekend. In the two weeks since its release, Anaconda has grossed $45.8 million domestically and $88 million worldwide, going against a $45 million production budget.
​Though we are only a few days into the new year, Comscore has projected the 2026 box office to already be ahead of 2025 by “26.5%” pacing-wise. With big-name releases this year, including Marvel’s Avengers: Doomsday and Spider-Man: Brand New Day, DC’s Supergirl, and Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, it will be interesting to see whether this year’s box office will hit numbers not seen since before the pandemic.

The weekend box office numbers are as follows:

1. Avatar: Fire and Ash Weekend $40M Total $305.99M Week 3
2. Zootopia 2 Weekend $19M Total $363.61M Week 6
3. The Housemaid Weekend $14.86M Total $75.72M Week 3
4. Marty Supreme Weekend $12.55M Total $56M Week 3
5. Anaconda $10M $45.86M Week 2
6. The SpongeBob Movie: Search for Squarepants Weekend $8.2M Total $57.63M Week 3
7. David Weekend $8M Total $70.11M Week 3
8. Song Sung Blue Weekend $5.81M Total $24.94M Week 2
9. Wicked: For Good Weekend $3.26M Total $339.88M Week 7
10. Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 Weekend $2.7M Total $125.22M Week 5

Notables.
11. We Bury the Dead Weekend $2.53M Total $2.53M Week