Varang (Oona Chaplin) in 20th Century Studios’ ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2025 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.
Preview:
- ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’ won the weekend’s box office.
- James Cameron’s latest earned $345 globally.
- Angel Studios’ David took second place.
Once again, it’s James Cameron’s world, and we’re just living in it.
The filmmaker’s latest trip to the moon of Pandora, ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash,’ heated up the frosty box office, opening top of the charts with $88 million.
And while that figure puts it behind the launch of 2022’s predecessor ‘Avatar: The Way of Water,’ it’s never in the opening that ‘Avatar’ movies really perform, and this new franchise entry is likely to hang around the charts, hoovering up cash.
“The world of Pandora will change forever.”
Release Date: Dec 19, 2025
Run Time: 3 hr 18 min
Budget: $400,000,000
The new movie also represents some hefty figures for the filmmaker in particular, representing his biggest global launch (more on that below) and the second-biggest start for a movie this year (squeezed in between fellow Disney stablemates ‘Zootopia 2’ and ‘Lilo & Stitch.’)
Related Article: Movie Review: ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’
How did ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’ do elsewhere?
Quaritch (Stephen Lang) in 20th Century Studios’ ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2025 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.
Overseas, the new ‘Avatar’ entry took in $257 million, leading to a global launch of $345 million. That is, as mentioned, the best international start for a Cameron movie.
According to Cameron himself, the movie needs to perform in order for him to keep making ‘Avatar’ films:
“It is one metric f**k ton of money, which means we have to make two metric f**k tons of money to make a profit. I have no doubt in my mind that this movie will make money. The question is, does it make enough money to justify doing it again?”
Now, we wait to see what sort of staying power ‘Fire and Ash’ displays…
What else happened at the box office this weekend?
‘David.’ Photo: Angel Studios.
With a big-screen Goliath dominating the chance, it seems somehow fitting that faith-based outfit Angel Studios chose to release ‘David,’ a kid-friendly story inspired by the Biblical tale of the warrior who took on the giant, and spun-off from TV series ‘Young David.’
The movie made $22 million on 3,118 screens, arriving in second place and marking the best three-day opening for Angel.
Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried’s ‘The Housemaid,’ a campy thriller, opened in third place with $19 million, while ‘The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants’ had to make do with fourth and $16 million.
In fifth place was ‘Zootopia 2’, which is still doing great business. It added $14.5 million in its fourth weekend on release, tallying $282 million domestically to date and a massive $1.27 billion globally, making it the most successful Hollywood release of the year so far.
Finally, opening 10th, Timothée Chalamet-starrer ‘Marty Supreme’ made an impressive debut in limited release, earning $875,000. That doesn’t sound much until you remember it opened on just six screens ahead of an expansion planned for Christmas Day.
That represents $145,933 per theater — the best of the year and highest average since ‘La La Land’ in 2016, according to studio A24.
Timothée Chalamet in ‘Marty Supreme’. Photo: A24.
