Box Office Report for the Week of January 25

Who would’ve thought that a Chris Pratt-sits-in-a-chair film would be the one to dethrone James Cameron‘s Avatar: Fire and Ash from the top spot of the box office? Granted, this weekend was relatively slow, with only two new releases offered to audiences, but this was fairly unexpected, given how poorly received Mercy has been amongst both critics and audiences.

Early “mystery” screenings and reduced ticket prices for IMAX 3D showtimes could’ve benefitted in its favor, but the film will likely end up being a box office disappointment by the time it finishes its run on the big screen, opening at $11.2 million on a $60 million budget, which doesn’t seem terrible, but probably won’t make considerable impact.

The other new release this weekend was Christophe Gans’ long-awaited Return to Silent Hill, which received worse reviews than Mercy (currently sitting at a 16% on Rotten Tomatoes, compared to 21% for Mercy), which didn’t perform as well as Timur Bekmambetov‘s modern reinvention of screenlife entertainment. That said, it did much better internationally than in North America, such as in China, where it opened at the top of the box office, compared to here, where it crashed and burned with a meager $3.2 million.

Time will tell how much it will do in Gans’ home country when the film bows out in February, but the filmmaker is a highly revered figure within French genre cinema, despite having only five titles in his rather diverse filmography.

Next week should also be a slower weekend at the box office, but with the Oscar nominations having been announced, we should expect a bump in some nominated films appearing in the top ten films of the weekend. In that case, Chloé Zhao‘s Hamnet rose to 48% from its previous weekend and snagged $2 million, bringing its total cume in the United States to over $17 million, which is quite impressive for an independent production.

Could Marty Supreme also bump in attendance with the film releasing in IMAX next week? We’ll see, but it is looking very good…

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

1. Mercy (Amazon MGM Studios): $11.2M – 3,468 theatres
2. Avatar: Fire and Ash (Disney): $7.0M (-52%) – 3,150 theatres
3. Zootopia 2 (Disney): $5.7M (-38%) – 2,930 theatres
4. The Housemaid (Lionsgate): $4.2M (-51%) – 3,007 theatres
5. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (Sony): $3.6M (-71%) – 3,506 theatres
6. Marty Supreme (A24): $3.5M (-36%) – 2,021 theatres
7. Return to Silent Hill (Iconic Events): $3.2M – 2,000 theatres
8. Hamnet (Universal): $2.0M (+48%) – 1,996 theatres
9. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring – 2026 Re-Release (Warner Bros.): $2.0M (-44%) – 1,729 theatres
10. Primate (Paramount): $1.6M (-67%) – 2,145 theatres

Source: Comscore