Shocking no one, Avatar: Fire and Ash dominated the weekend box office, but all the new releases did solid business as we get ready for Christmas.
Avatar: Fire and Ash took in $88 million over the weekend domestically, which puts it between Avatar: The Way of Water and the original Avatar. Way of Water opened to $134.1 million back in 2022. Worldwide, Fire and Ash has $346.1 million in total, with $57.6 million from China. The movie got an A CinemaScore, the same as the other two Avatar films, so word of mouth should be strong. All of the films had incredible legs, holding strong for weeks after their initial release, and there’s no reason to suspect Fire and Ash won’t do the same thing. It was the lowest-reviewed movie in the trilogy on Rotten Tomatoes, which suggests critics are getting tired of the franchise, but general audiences still seem ready to travel to Pandora.
David opened in second place with $22 million domestically. That’s the best opening ever for Angel Studios, and they seem to be capitalizing on the Christmas faith-based audience. It, like Avatar, received an A CinemaScore, so that suggests it will have strong legs through the holidays.
The Housemaid opened in third place, right around projections, at $19 million. After several high-profile bombs, including Christy, it’s Sydney Sweeney’s highest opening ever, and it’s Amanda Seyfried’s sixth-highest opening. For director Paul Feig, it sits between the openings of Bridesmaids and A Simple Favor.
The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants and Zootopia 2 rounded out the top 5. SpongeBob took in $15.6 million domestically over the weekend, which is the lowest wide-release opening of the franchise (Sponge Out of Water came out in August 2020 in only 300 theaters). It should hold well based on its A- CinemaScore, and it should bring in families looking for something to watch on or after Christmas. Zootopia 2 now has $1.2 billion worldwide.
In 10th place, Marty Supreme debuted in six theaters ahead of its wide release on Christmas Day and took 10th place with $875,000. That translates to a per-theater average of $145,833, which is easily the highest per-theater average of 2025 and one of the top 20 best per-theater averages of all time, sitting between Brother Bear and American Sniper.
