Box Office: 'Sonic' Trilogy Zooms Past $1 Billion As 'Nosferatu' Tops $100M
'Se7en' returns to Imax and the adult-skewing likes of 'A Complete Unknown' and 'Babygirl' all post terrific post-holiday holds as 'Mufasa' nears $500M Global
The domestic box office will reach around $106 million for the weekend, up 21% from the $88 million first weekend of 2024 and essentially tied with the Avatar 2 *and* M3GAN-fueled $106 million first weekend of 2023. To be fair, Avatar is Avatar, and even M3GAN was a bigger-than-normal “schlocktastic horror flick for the first weekend of January” offering. With all due respect, M3GAN > Night Swim, The Forest, or The Grudge. We’ve gotten a few genuinely solid films via this odd pattern, including M3GAN, Escape Room (or, as I call it with 100% fondness, 1877 Saw 4 Kids) and Daybreakers (maybe the last non-Twilight vampire commercial success story until Nosferatu). It’s odd that we’re not getting such a movie this year, with Companion moved to January 31 and Wolf Man opening on January 17. This Tuesday marks the 20th anniversary of Michael Keaton’s White Noise, which unofficially kicked off the trend.
As noted yesterday, 2025 is starting with zero significant new releases, but the holdovers we do have in the marketplace are comparatively strong performers. No, we don’t have a single Avatar or even Hobbit-sized mega-movie. We have a plethora of films of all shapes and sizes, targeting non-overlapping demographics and performing at least as well as required regarding budget and expectations. In a healthy marketplace where theatrical isn’t in zero-sum peril, I wouldn’t care less about the overall cumulative box office and instead focus on how each film is performing on its own merits. For example, the raw over/under $200 million differential between 2024 ($8.9 billion) and 2023 ($8.7 billion) could be as simple as A) Disney delayed some of its biggies (Elio, Snow White, Captain America 4, etc.) to 2025, B) Joker 2 earned $60 million instead of $260 million, and/or C) nobody cares about non-Venom Sony Marvel movies.