UPDATE: 2026/01/04 08:01 EST BY BRENNAN KLEIN
Avatar: Fire And Ash Adds $4 Million To Its Original $36 Million Projections
This article was originally written Saturday AM and has been updated Sunday AM with up-to-date box office projections (in bold). Scroll down for a full chart and further analysis.
Avatar: Fire and Ash is continuing its reign at the domestic box office. The 2025 James Cameron movie is the third installment in his blockbuster sci-fi franchise, following installments that are the first and third highest-grossing movies of all time respectively. The Avatar: Fire and Ash release kicked off on December 19 with the second-best domestic debut of the trilogy (not adjusted for inflation).
Per Variety, as of Sunday morning, Avatar: Fire and Ash is projected to earn a 3-day total of $40 million at the domestic box office by the end of its third weekend. This will push its cumulative domestic box office haul to $306 million, making it just the seventh 2025 movie to pass the $300 million domestic milestone.
In doing so, it has surged past the overall domestic gross of Ryan Coogler’s smash horror hit Sinners, which grossed $279.6 million in North America and $367.9 million worldwide against a reported budget of roughly $100 million.
Fire and Ash is also set to hit No. 1 at the domestic box office for the third weekend in a row, even though it is dropping 43% from its sophomore weekend. This sees it following in the footsteps of the previous Avatar movies, which also topped the chart during their first three weekends.
In fact, both the original 2009 movie and its 2022 sequel, The Way of Water, maintained a position at No. 1 for seven consecutive weekends.
It remains to be seen if Fire and Ash can keep its streak going as long as its predecessors. While it is an undeniable box office smash and is currently nearing the $1 billion milestone worldwide, it is not performing at quite the same level as either of the previous record-obliterating titles.
During its own third weekend, Avatar took in a whopping $68.5 million, dropping just 9.4% from its previous weekend. The Way of Water actually rose 6.5% during that same frame, with a 3-day total of $67.4 million. These numbers indicate that 2025’s Avatar: Fire and Ash is slowing down much more quickly than the previous installments.
This is the case even though no new major wide releases have hit theaters during the first weekend of 2026. With several wide release sequels set to debut in the coming weeks (including Greenland 2 and 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple), it remains to be seen if Avatar: Fire and Ash will be able to face down the competition and keep up its streak at No. 1.
This Weekend’s Domestic Box Office Top 5
Below, see the full domestic Top 5 chart for the weekend:
| # | Title | 3-Day Total | Cumulative (Domestic) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Avatar: Fire and Ash | $40 million | $306 million (weekend 3) |
| 2 | Zootopia 2 | $19 million | $363 million (weekend 6) |
| 3 | The Housemaid | $15.2 million | $75.7 million (weekend 3) |
| 4 | Marty Supreme | $12.5 million | $56 million (weekend 3) |
| 5 | Anaconda | $10 million | $45.8 million (weekend 2) |
Even though there are no new releases in the Top 5 this weekend (the biggest newcomer, the Daisy Ridley zombie movie We Bury the Dead is having a quiet debut at No. 11 in just 1,172 theaters), there has been a bit of movement on the chart.
While Avatar: Fire and Ash, Zootopia 2, and Anaconda hold the same places that they did on last weekend’s chart, the Timothée Chalamet ping pong drama and the Sydney Sweeney thriller The Housemaid have swapped places. The latter fell a narrow 30% from its sophomore weekend (which was also its wide expansion), but the former did even better with an impressively slim 1% drop.
Overall, the holdover titles alongside Avatar: Fire and Ash have pushed the weekend to a domestic box office total of $134.7 million, which is the best for the first frame of the year since 2018, which had a $144.2 million total propelled by titles including 2017’s The Greatest Showman, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, and Star Wars: The Last Jedi, plus the new release Insidious: The Last Key.
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- Release Date
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December 19, 2025
- Runtime
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197 Minutes
- Writers
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Amanda Silver, Rick Jaffa, James Cameron, Josh Friedman, Shane Salerno
- Producers
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Jon Landau, James Cameron, Brigitte Yorke, Jamie Landau, Maria Battle-Campbell
