Box Office: ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’ Kicks Off With $88 Million Domestic Debut https://t.co/k6ItI0ka8P
— Variety (@Variety) December 21, 2025
James Cameron’s third Avatar film has debuted in first place at the box office this weekend. Avatar: Fire and Ash brought in $88 million domestically, which eclipses the opening weekend of the first film from 2009, which was $77 million, but lags far behind the opening weekend of the second film, at $124 million, released in 2022. Both films had strong legs and ended up making over $2 billion a piece, so Disney likely hopes that this latest edition also has strong legs over the holiday period. It’s already made $345 million globally.
In second place was a faith-based animated offering from Angel Studios, David, which made $22 million in 3100 theaters. This eclipses their opening weekend record, previously set by Sound of Freedom.
Third place belonged to The Housemaid, starring Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried, bringing in $19 million from 3,000 theaters. The film earned a B cinemascore, which is not unusual for a thriller, and the crowds skewed largely female.
In fourth place was The Spongebob Movie: The Search for Squarepants, which debuted with a $16 million take. This is far lower than previous installments, but the critical response was great, and the holidays next week could entice bigger family crowds.
Zootopia 2 came in fifth place with $14.5 million in its fourth weekend, bringing in $282 million domestically and $1.27 worldwide.
Two new releases came out in just six theaters this weekend – Marty Supreme and Is This Thing On?. While Marty Supreme pulled an incredible $145k per theater average for a total take of $875,000, Is This Thing On? gathered $24k per theater, bringing in $145k from all six theaters combined. Marty Supreme has the biggest per theater average of the year, but next weekend’s box office will show how much appeal it has outside of New York and Los Angeles.