Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | January 4, 2026
Happy New Year. It’s the first weekend of 2026 and that means nobody is at the cinema. Okay, obviously not true, but for the major studios, this is not an optimal time to drop a big new movie. We think of January as the dumping ground for a reason. Everyone is cold, broke, dealing with other crap, and maybe watching Heated Rivalry the sixth time. That makes it a good time for December movies, hoping to ride out the month with no competition, and for awards favourites building up to a wide release after a limited run.
For now, the king of the box office remains Avatar: Fire & Ash. It’s now at $306 million domestically and crossed the $1 billion threshold in less than three weeks. Things are also good for Zootopia 2, which only saw a 4.2% drop from the previous week and is now at $363.6 million domestic. It’s ahead of Avatar 3 worldwide too, with an impressive $1.58 billion, although it had an extra three weeks in theatres to accumulate that.
The Housemaid is doing well, with $75.7 million in the bank, proving that the book is a very big deal. Timothee Chalamet’s Marty Supreme is holding on strong with $56 million. That number could increase should the movie’s awards season chances grow, which they probably will.
Speaking of Oscars: now is the time to get your contenders in front of eyeballs, at least on an indie level. Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice grossed $991,250 from 45 locations. Bradley Cooper’s stand-up drama Is This Thing On? yucked up $250,735 from 33 cinemas. Norwegian family drama Sentimental Value made $85,514 from 70 theatres. The experimental Chinese drama Resurrection got an impressive 601% boost in gross as it moved into 86 cinemas. This is still a small-scale operation and will get bigger as things like the Golden Globes and Critics Choice awards happen. I would also expect One Battle After Another, the current frontrunner of the season, to return to IMAX for a few weeks. Yes, please!
There was one new release this past weekend. The zombie drama We Bury the Dead, starring Daisy Ridley, took in $2.53 million from 1,172 places. Brains.
This coming week sees the release of the AI horror Soulm8te, the Gerard Butler-punches-the-apocalypse sequel Greenland 2: Migration, and the horror Primate.
You can check out the rest of the weekend box office numbers here.
