UPDATED, New Year’s Day on New Year’s Eve business: 20th Century Studios/Disney’s Avatar: Fire and Ash led what was a typical slow New Year’s Eve, making $8.1 million Wednesday and taking its stateside cume to $250.2M.
Currently, the Comscore-reported 2025 domestic box office total is at $8.87 billion, up 1.5% from 2024. The data org will announce an updated figure sometime next week after all residuals are in. In 2023, ironically a year that was impacted by strikes yet had the power of Barbie and Oppenheimer, continues to stand as the highest-grossing domestic year at the annual B.O. post-Covid with $9.04 billion.
We told you that despite many forecasting a $9B year for 2025, that the year would fall short of that mark.
Says Comscore Head of Marketplace Trends, Paul Dergarabedian: “As we wrap a box office year that delivered its share of ups and downs including a rather slow first quarter followed by a huge month of April, a record-breaking Memorial [Day] weekend and a post-summer corridor offered up a decade’s low month of October. The final two months of the year boasted a solid Thanksgiving frame and finally a very strong push to the end of the year with an eclectic mix of movies for every demographic in December. Big drivers in ‘25 were PG-rated films that for the second year in a row outgrossed their PG-13 counterparts, and the horror genre which had a record year scaring up over $1.4 billion in box office domestically. In the wake of all that tumult, ‘26 has its sights set on grabbing up the highest annual box office haul since 2020 with some of the biggest movie franchises, filmmakers and stars heading for the multiplex throughout the year.”
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Worldwide, Avatar: Fire and Ash stands north of $860M; it’s bound to become Disney’s third 2025 theatrical release to cross $1 billion after Zootopia 2 and Lilo & Stitch.
That running total is currently pacing 26% behind 2022’s Avatar: Way of Water over the same span (13 days), that sequel ending its run in North America at $684M during its initial release, not counting rerelease monies). Fire and Ash‘s 13-day cume is pacing 7% behind the original 2009 pic’s total at the same point in time, which was $268.8M (the initial final run of the first Avatar was $749.9M).
Note, by New Year’s Eve, Avatar: Way of Water had been in theaters for 16 days. Way of Water‘s New Year’s Eve total was $18M, while the original Avatar grossed $14.7M on that day.
In the U.S. and Canada, New Year’s Eve always takes an ease before spiking today, which is similar trajectory to business on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. As such, all movies on New Year’s Eve grossed around $28.7M, off 38% from Tuesday’s estimated $46.4M.
Remember, the money made by Stranger Things: Finale, which began Thursday at 5 p.m. ET and runs through today, is concession cash, not box office money. All we know is that two days before opening, 1.1 million seats were sold at 620-plus theaters stateside, which is 700,000 shy of the 1.7M tickets that Sony/Crunchyroll’s Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle had in the bank the Monday before its opening Friday (why that comp? It’s also a fan-driven title, granted non-Netflix).
Exhibitors and distribution heads have nothing to complain about when Christmas and New Year’s Day fall on a Thursday: They gain an extra weekend of moviegoing.
Here’s how the top 10 went down at the domestic box office on New Year’s Eve:
1. Avatar: Fire and Ash (20th) 3,800 theaters, Wed $8.1M (-43% from Tuesday) Wk $96.4M Total $250.1M/Wk 2
2. Zootopia 2 (Dis) 3,370 theaters, Wed $4.6M (-31%) Wk $36.5M Total $337.9M/Wk 5
3. Marty Supreme (A24) 2,668 (+2,662) theaters, Wed $2.4M Wk (-44%), Wk $28.1M, Total $38.9M/Wk 2
4. David (Angel) 2,867 (-251) theaters, Wed $2.375M (-36%), Wk $21.4M, Total $58.5M/Wk 2
5. Anaconda (Sony) 3,509 theaters, Wed $2.19M (-37%), Wk $22.7M, Total $31.8M/Wk 1
6. The Housemaid (LG) 3,042 (+27) theaters, Wed $2.155M (-49%), Wk $25.2M, Total $56.2M/Wk 2
7. Song Sung Blue (Foc) 2,587 theaters, Wed $2.1M (+9%) Wk $12.4M, Total $16.88M/Wk 1
8. SpongeBob Movie (Par) 3,570 (+13) theaters, Wed $2M (-44%) Wk $19.3M Total $46.3M/Wk 2
9. Wicked: For Good (Uni) 2,008 (-905) theaters, Wed $970K (-33%) Wk $9M, Total $335.4M/Wk 6
10. Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 (Uni) 2,280 (-732) theaters, Wed $520K (-57%) Wk $7.1M Total $121.6M/Wk 4
