James Cameron’s Avatar: Fire and Ash dominated the long Christmas weekend with a four-day earnings of $88 million, including $64 million for the three-day weekend proper.
While it’s lagging behind the last film at the same point its run, Fire and Ash is still a monster, grossing another $181.2 million overseas for a global tally of $760.4 million through Sunday, including $217.7 million domestically and $542.7 million overseas. And with a week to go before the holidays are officially wrapped, it should be at $1 billion by the end of next weekend.
That would give Disney dominion over the only three 2025 movies that crossed $1 billion at the 2025 worldwide box office behind Zootopia 2, which — no joke — placed No. 2 over for the three-day Christmas weekend with $20 million in its fifth outing, and Lilo & Stitch. While this is all great news for Disney, it’s a sobering reminder as to why domestic box office revenue for 2025 will come in behind, or barely match, 2024’s $8.8 billion.
It wasn’t for a lack of trying. Rather, there were too few events pics, although the eclectic mix of presents under the Christmas Day tree resulted in the best holiday in terms of overall revenue since the pandemic.
A24’s high-profile period pic Marty Supreme — starring Timothée Chalamet as a 1950s table tennis champion — was the biggest surprise in grabbing second place over the four-day weekend with $27.1 million, the best opening in the history of the indie studio.
In a surprise upset, Chalamet’s film easily came in ahead of Sony’s Anaconda, which also opened on Dec. 25. The Jack Black-Paul Rudd film, skewered by critics, opened to $23.6 million domestically over the four-day holiday weekend for a global start of $43.7 million, in line with expectations.
Marty Supreme began made headlines the weekend before Christmas with a record-breaking per-location average of $145,913 across six locations in New York City and L.A., the best in A24’s history and the best of any film since 2016’s La La Land. Sporting a pricey budget of $60 million to $70 million, it is reportedly the most expensive movie ever made by the indie studio. (Period pics are expensive!)
In his review for THR, chief critic David Rooney says Marty Supreme reinvents the sports comedy. “Marking the first time since his 2008 solo debut that Josh Safdie has directed a feature without his brother and longtime collaborator Benny, Marty Supreme turns out, paradoxically, to be his most Safdian movie to date. Propelled by a hot-wired Timothée Chalamet as a cocky operator aiming for global table tennis glory, this genre-defying original is an exhilarating sports comedy, a scrappy character study, a thrumming evocation of early ‘50s New York City — plus a reimagining of all those things. Think of it as Uncut Gems meets Catch Me If You Can and maybe you’re halfway there.”
Gwyneth Paltrow, Odessa A’zion and Tyler, the Creator also star in this tale of an aspiring table tennis champion angling to ping pong his way out of 1950s Lower East Side Manhattan.
Chalamet has stopped at nothing to help market the movie — including becoming the first person to stand atop The Sphere in Las Vegas — and it appears to be paying off. In the weeks leading up to the film’s release, he wrote and directed a staged Zoom call with A24’s marketing team in which he presented increasingly ridiculous ideas to promote Marty Supreme. One of the ideas presented actually became reality: fly a bright orange rented blimp with the movie’s title imprinted on each side. While there was talk of a cross-country tour, the blimp is based in the Los Angeles area. The Zoom also resulted in the idea for Safdie and the cast to light the Empire State Building orange ahead of the New York premiere.
The big question facing Marty Supreme, which placed third for the Friday-Sunday weekend behind Zootopia 2 with $17.5 million, is whether it can break out and play to mainstream audiences, versus the more traditional specialty and awards voter crowd.
Other Christmas victors included Lionsgate’s The Housemaid, starring Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried, and Angel Studios’ faith-based David.
Christmas Day falling on a Thursday is a dream scenario for theater owners, since it gives them a long holiday weekend. And the week between Christmas and New Year’s is one of the most lucrative for moviegoing, considering that schools and colleges are closed, with many adults off from work as well.
More to come.
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