‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’ ignites box office for second straight weekend

By Auzinea Bacon, CNN

(CNN) — Moviegoers flocked to theaters for Disney’s “Avatar: Fire and Ash” on the last weekend of the year, solidifying the sci-fi adventure film’s place as one of the biggest blockbusters of 2025.

The third installment of director James Cameron’s “Avatar” films raked in another $64 million domestically Friday through Sunday, and roughly $181.2 million internationally, bringing its worldwide total to $760.4 million.

“Fire and Ash” is the No. 6 highest-grossing film worldwide this year, having overtaken popular releases like Warner Bros. Discovery’s “Superman” and Sony Pictures’ “Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle” in just 10 days.

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The big-budget “Avatar” franchise, which includes films from 2009 and 2022, has proved it can still draw large audiences to theaters with its spectacular visual effects. “Fire and Ash” has earned $96 million globally on IMAX and is expected to become IMAX’s biggest Hollywood release of the year, according to Disney.

“Premium formats (are) a huge factor for ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash,’ despite the fact that consumers are price-sensitive,” said Paul Dergarabedian, head of marketplace trends at Comscore.

Audiences were also drawn to a diverse slate of movies this weekend. Disney’s “Zootopia 2,” which opened on Thanksgiving, finished No. 2 at the box office with $20 million, a 35% jump from last weekend, according to Comscore. “Zootopia 2” has grossed $1.4 billion worldwide — the second-highest-grossing movie of the year.

“(‘Zootopia 2’) gets the Most Valuable Player award for the holiday season,” said Dergarabedian, who noted that PG-rated movies earned $2.87 billion this year, while outperforming PG-13 movies.

At No. 3 was A24’s “Marty Supreme” — the sports comedy-drama starring Timothée Chalamet — which grossed $17.5 million amid a surge of attention on social media. It was driven by a male-dominated “Marty Army,” according to A24, with one-third of the movie’s audience being under 25 years old.

After opening in six theaters last weekend in New York City and Los Angeles, “Marty Supreme” rode a wave of Oscar and online buzz to propel it to box office success in over 2,600 theaters, according to Shawn Robbins, director of movie analytics at Fandango and owner of Box Office Theory.

“(A24) catered to the old and new mindsets of marketing a movie like this around the holidays, knowing that it would be an award season player,” he said.

Lionsgate Films’ “The Housemaid,” which opened last weekend, was No. 4 this weekend at $15.4 million. It was followed by Sony Pictures’ “Anaconda” ($14.5 million), a reboot of the 1997 movie.

Angel Studios’ “David” ($12.69 million) finished sixth, ahead of Paramount’s “The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants” ($11 million). Focus Features’ “Song Sung Blue” opened this weekend at No. 8 with $7.6 million.

This was the best Christmas week for the box office since 2020, according to Robbins.

“To have most of these seven major releases opening around Christmas do relatively well, and you either meet or exceed expectations — that has not happened very much in the post-Covid era,” Robbins said.

The overall domestic box office has grossed $8.76 billion in earnings in 2025, according to Comscore data. That’s up 1.56% from last year but still behind 2023, the only post-pandemic year to boast $9 billion in earnings.

Box office numbers are still well behind 2019, when domestic earnings totaled more than $11 billion.

But successful December films could carry over into a strong start for 2026, according to Dergarabedian, who estimates another $100 million can be added by the end of the year.

Dergarabedian said a strong release slate for movies next year could give theaters their best year since the pandemic.

Some of next year’s biggest movies include Universal Pictures’ “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” (April 3) and “Disclosure Day” (June 12), as well as Disney’s “Toy Story 5” (June 19). “Avengers: Doomsday” and Warner Bros. Pictures’ “Dune: Part Three” are both slated for December 18.

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