Box Office Report for the Week of January 11

As the year begins and we transition from the 2025 to the 2026 movie season, smaller new releases are making their way to cinemas before the year’s biggest blockbusters. One such title is Johannes Roberts‘ Primate, which has garnered significant buzz since its premiere at Fantastic Fest last year and snagged a fairly impressive $11.3 million domestic opening on a $21 million budget.

For a mid-budget horror flick, it’s not a bad opening, but it will need some sizeable legs to sustain momentum. Luckily, the buzz is much better than most January horror films released around the same time (Night Swim? Anyone?), so it has a chance to make some bank, as the next few weeks will be relatively quiet.

Ric Roman Waugh’s Greenland 2: Migration also opened this weekend, with an abysmal $8.5 million on a $90 million budget. Given that the first movie’s release was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and opened straight to video-on-demand (and, most importantly, international audiences will only get it via Prime Video in a few months), its chances of success were quite slim. It pales in comparison with Den of Thieves 2: Pantera‘s staggering box office power a year ago, but Gerard Butler will continue to churn out January titles until morale improves, I guess.

Funnily enough, Greenland 2: Migration won’t be Ric Roman Waugh’s only movie this month. His next feature, Shelter, starring Jason Statham, will be released in cinemas at the end of January, too, outside the United States. Could it have a bigger box office cume than Greenland? It’s likely, but only time will tell in that regard…

Here is the full list of the top ten films of the weekend:

1. Avatar: Fire and Ash (Disney): $21.3M (-49%) – 3,700 theatres
2. Primate (Paramount): $11.3M – 2,964 theatres
3. The Housemaid (Lionsgate): $11.2M (-26%) – 3,123 theatres
4. Zootopia 2 (Disney): $10.1M (-48%) – 3,200 theatres
5. Greenland 2: Migration (Lionsgate): $8.5M – 2,710 theatres
6. Marty Supreme (A24): $7.6M (-39%) – 2,512 theatres
7. Anaconda (Sony): $5.1M (-49%) – 3,075 theatres
8. The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants (Paramount): $3.8M (-54%) – 2,567 theatres
9. David (Angel Studios): $3.08M (-60%) – 2,475 theatres
10. Song Sung Blue (Universal): $3.0M (-49%) – 2,262 theatres

Source: Comscore