Movie Preview: January 2026

Another year has come and gone. In fact, we’re almost two weeks into the new year, which means it’s about time I start getting some posts out, reflecting on 2025 and looking forward to 2026. First order of business is doing a deep dive into January, given that we’re nearing the halfway point on the month. Luckily for my sake, there was very little that came out in the first two weekends of the month. Only one release in the first weekend that barely crossed 1,000 theaters. Two proper wide releases in the second weekend that was the real kick-off to the year. And in typical January fashion, they both got mostly ignored.

In actuality, there’s not a whole lot of big new releases on the calendar this month, anyways. There is a decently high quantity of smaller releases crammed into the final three weekends of the month, though. And we’ll cover all of those alongside the smaller amount of bigger titles, after briefly recapping the titles in the first two weekends. And that leads into my typical January spiel. Movie quality is 100 percent subjective. There’s no right or wrong answer to what is bad or good. Just personal taste. But January is often seen as more of a “dumping ground” month as studios typically save movies they have higher faith in for the summer months or various holiday corridors. And the more prestigious titles aiming for awards get saved for the end of the year. That leaves the new January releases in an awkward spot as titles that got dumped on the calendar. And they often get overshadowed at the actual box office by the holiday holdovers that people are catching up on or awards affair that got released at the end of the year and are expanding as we get deep into awards season.

Given that I’ve already talked about the holiday titles in last month’s preview, as well as most of the awards affair, the main goal with this post will be to focus on the new January releases, although we’ll mention a few others along the way as it becomes necessary. Again, there’s a high quantity of smaller releases on the schedule, even if the quality can debated, so let’s dive in and see what’s available and perhaps discover a few hidden gems along the way!

As always, release date information for this post is courtesy of the-numbers-com and boxofficepro.com. The movies listed are the ones currently scheduled for a wide release in the United States and Canada and are always subject to change.

January 2 – 4

Vertical Entertainment's "We Bury the Dead"

When the clock struck midnight and the new year was upon us, I had the realization that I had a January preview to write. And I panicked a bit, especially since I got sick and was low on energy. Then I looked at the schedule leading into the week and… there was no wide releases planned.

That first weekend was dominated by holdover releases, primarily “Avatar: Fire and Ash” and “Zootopia 2” as the main events. “Avatar” made another $41.4 million in its third weekend in release, finishing the weekend with $307.7 million total domestically. “Zootopia 2” stayed in second place in its sixth weekend in release, dropping just 2 percent from the previous Christmas weekend to make another $19.4 million domestically. It had $364.0 million domestically by the end of the weekend. Both of these have also been huge worldwide hits. As of my writing this post, on January 13, “Avatar” is currently at $1.2 billion worldwide, while “Zootopia 2” is at $1.6 billion. Thanks in part due to a huge run in China, the latter has also past “Frozen 2” to be the highest grossing worldwide release for Walt Disney Animation Studios. Right below these two massive hits, “The Housemaid” and “Marty Supreme” have become sleeper hits. As we dive deeper into the actual January release schedule, these four movies will continue to draw audiences in.

As it turns out, there did wind up being one new wide release this weekend. It wasn’t on the radar of any site I had looked at going into the weekend. The common weekend preview was “no wide releases this weekend as holdovers set to dominate.” But when actual results came in, We Bury the Dead ended up making $2.5 million from 1,172 theaters. So not a major wide release, and that $2.5 million was only good enough to end up in 11th place on the weekend, but wide enough for me to feel obligated to mention it in this post. The movie initially premiered in March 2025 at the South by Southwest Film Festival and stars Daisy Ridley as a woman on the hunt for her husband as a military experiment gone wrong killed many people off the coast of Tasmania, while turning many others into brain dead zombies. It got decent reaction from those who gave it a shot, with an 85 percent critics score, although general audiences were slightly less enthused as the audience score on the opposite side of that is just 47 percent.

January 9 – 11

Paramount's "Primate"

This second weekend of January is where the real fireworks began in regards to the true opening films of the month. There were two major wide releases that we’ll talk about, as well as two minor releases to mention briefly. That said, despite two new wide releases, both opening in just under 3,000 theaters, “Avatar: Fire and Ash” remained on top in its fourth weekend with another $21.5 million. “The Housemaid” actually snuck ahead of “Zootopia 2,” in third place with $10.9 million, while “Zootopia 2” fell to fourth with just a hair above $10 million. “Marty Supreme” slipped down to sixth with $7.6 million, but with Oscar nominations around the corner, it could soon be in for another boost.

Opening in second place was the horror movie Primate, which was a minor upset over the other wide release that we’ll get to in a second. When I initially wrote this post, I had these two movies listed in reverse order, but now we switch. “Primate” is a horror film centered around a killer chimpanzee that goes mad and kills everyone around it in very bloody, brutal fashion. It apparently rather quickly lets you know what type of movie it is, letting you know right away if its your thing or not. Perhaps the less important part of the movie – the plot – centers around a group of friends going on a vacation to Hawaii. The lead friend is named Lucy, played by Johnny Sequoyah, and they’re actually heading to her family home in Hawaii. The chimp, that later gets bitten and turned rabid, was initially their family’s pet chimp as opposed to some random ape that caused havoc. Most of the cast are likely just meat sacks that are there to get torn apart by the chimp. The movie opened to $11.1 million, which is not bad considering it had a budget of just over $20 million. Going into the weekend, the expected range was $7-10 million and it hit just above that. The thing that likely pushed it over the edge was last minute TV spots that focused on audience reaction and strong reviews. Said reviews wound up being slightly more moderate (79 percent from critics), but that was good enough advertising to get enough people out.

The movie that initially was poised as the biggest opener, but wound up disappointing, was the Gerard Butler led disaster sequel Greenland 2: Migration. The first movie opened in the midst of COVID, and wound up going straight to PVOD in the states, while earning just over $40 million from various international markets. That movie was the latest in a surprisingly long streak of Gerard Butler disaster flicks and had him and his family venturing off to bunkers in Greenland to avoid a potentially catastrophic comet. Diving too deep into this sequel’s plot will spoil the ending of the first, so we’ll tread carefully. The existence of a sequel that also stars Gerard Butler might clue you in on a few things, but I’ll just say simply that the sequel deals with the aftermath of the first movie’s events. A survival flick in a post-comet world, if you will. The lack of a domestic theatrical release for the original did make prognostication for a sequel a little tricky, but Butler has been a bit of a mainstay in January. Last year at this time he opened “Den of Thieves 2” to $15 million, while in 2023 on this exact weekend, he opened “Plane” to $10.3. While not in January, fellow Gerard Butler disaster flick “Geostorm” opened to $13.7 million in October 2017. So an opening in the $10-15 million range seemed like a safe bet. But for whatever reason – lack of interest, subpar reviews, or the lack of a theatrical release for the first – this sequel opened down in fifth place with $8.4 million, behind “The Housemaid” and “Zootopia 2,” but just ahead of “Marty Supreme.”

That’s it for the major wide release, but there are two moderate releases to mention. The first of those is actually the nationwide expansion of Bradley Cooper’s latest film Is This Thing On?, which went from 33 theaters to 1,475 theaters this weekend, earning $2.3 million on the weekend as it settled in just below the top 10 in 11th place. It had previously made just over $1 million in its three weekends of limited release. The movie centers around Will Arnett, who plays a stand-up comedian trying to make due in New York as his marriage in unraveling and he’s facing divorce. The movie co-stars Laura Dern and Andra Day, as well as Bradley Cooper in a supporting role, with him also having written and directed the movie. Cooper has become a bit of an Oscar darling as of late as his first two movies he’s directed, “A Star is Born” and “Maestro” were both showered with Oscar nominations. He’s also had several acting nominations dating back to “Silver Linings Playbook” in 2012. Despite all of that, with 12 total nominations when you count acting, writing, directing, and producing, he’s not yet had a win. Which is why Searchlight smartly positioned this as a potential awards player, with the idea that maybe third time is the charm for Cooper. It hit the festival run starting in October. It had it’s limited release in late December, with an expansion in the biggest part of awards season. And while we’ll see what happens on Oscar nomination morning, but so far with precursors, it’s been blanked, despite having decent reviews. For whatever reason, it just didn’t connect with voters. The lack of awards buzz makes it simply a traditional adult-targeted drama instead of a must-see awards film, but there’s definitely still a place for that type of release.

Coming in the caboose of all this was the opening of the latest Angel Studios flick, I Was a Stranger. This was actually announced by Angel Studios back in September as a movie that was going to be given a limited release in late December, while expanding in January, exactly like the previous movie we just talked about. But for whatever reason, and without much of an updated announcement from the studio, the limited release never happened and instead they simply opened it in 1,400 theaters this weekend. The movie also had a long journey to get to theaters in the first place as it was written and directed by Brandt Anderson and is set in the backdrop of the Syrian Civil War, telling several different interwoven stories from different families that come together during tragedy. The script was written in 2017, but Brandt couldn’t get it off the ground initially, so he first adapted his story into a short film called “Refugee” that made the Oscar shortlist in 2020 for best live action short. It didn’t end up with a nomination, but that was enough for the full movie to finally get made and released. Angel Studios has found a niche for themselves with Biblical animated features, but their live action films typically fall in the $3-5 million range for their openings. This one fell below that with just $1.2 million. Positive reaction from those who have checked it out, but not much fanfare leading up to it’s release and thus poor results when awareness mostly doesn’t exist.

January 16 – 19 

Sony's "28 Years Later: The Bone Temple"

And now we move forward to four-day holiday weekend with Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday, which is certainly the busiest weekend of the month in regards to the quantity of releases. How big they’ll all be at the box office is more debatable, but we’ll get into that. The biggest new release of the weekend, which should also be the biggest release of the month is 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. This franchise began in 2003 with “28 Days Later,” then mostly regurgitated the same plot four years later in 2007 with “28 Weeks Later.” The franchise then took an 18 year hiatus before returning last year with the widely acclaimed third movie, “28 Years Later,” which itself was mostly a springboard to a new trilogy, of which the first and second movies were filmed back-to-back, which is how we’ve gotten this sequel just six months later. Without getting into too much plot, the final act of “28 Years Later” had the characters arrive at the Bone Temple. In regards to what that means, you’ll have to watch the film and find out. But the general idea is that this is a zombie flick, where the outbreak has been contained to a certain area. And now it’s been 28 years and things have certainly evolved as our characters journey out to the land of the infected. After arriving at the Bone Temple, this is where the sequel takes over, as it’s title would suggest. In regards to this newly planned trilogy, director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland, who both worked on the original 2003 film, returned for last year’s entry. And while Garland has remained as writer, it was Nia DaCosta who directed “The Bone Temple,” with Boyle on as producer while he finished his directing duties on the previous entry. Boyle is set to return as director, with Garland again as writer, in the final entry of this trilogy. Last year, “28 Years Later” opened to $30 million, which is the goal for this second one, although current expectations are a tad bit lower in the $18-25 million range.

While audiences set out to watch “The Bone Temple,” along with all the previously mentioned holdovers that should continue to do well over the holiday weekend, there are an additional trio of smaller releases that will be scattered in some markets. As of typing this post, I don’t have any official theater counts, but looking at my own local showtimes, it appears the widest opening of this smaller trio will be All You Need Is Kill, a new anime film released by GKIDS, based on a 2004 Japanese novel of the same name, that was adapted into a manga a decade later in 2014. The story follows Keiji Kiriya, a new recruit in the United Defense Force. The soldiers are sent out into battle, armed with powered exoskeletons, against a mysterious alien species that have attacked Earth. Upon attack, Keiji is killed by one of the aliens, but somehow wakes up and finds himself back in the day before the battle, stuck in a time loop. And if this premise sounds familiar, it was adapted into the live-action film “Edge of Tomorrow” in 2014, directed by Doug Liman and starring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt. This new anime, though, is a more direct adaptation of the novel and manga as opposed to an American live-action remake. Anime has done pretty well at the box office recently, so don’t count this one out. Although recent successes have been mostly movies attached to popular anime series.

Next up with these smaller releases is the horror film Night Patrol. This is a movie that premiered at Fantastic Fest in September 2025 and is about a Los Angeles police officer that discovers a local task force that’s hiding a major secret. The trailer and poster suggests vampires, but perhaps there’s more secrets to be revealed as the movie goes on. This movie is co-distributed by RLJ Entertainment and Shudder. There’s a lot of these smaller horror films headed to the Shudder streaming service where Shudder teams up with an indie studio, usually IFC or RLJ, to give a brief theatrical release before putting it on their service. With RLJ, their biggest Shudder team-up last year was “Clown in a Cornfield,” which opened to $3.6 million from 2,277. That movie had more of a marketing push and higher awareness, though, so the other RLJ and Shudder film from 2025 might be the better comparison, that being “Ash,” which opened to $689,144 in 1,136 theaters. With poor reaction and low awareness, “Night Patrol” is likely mainly a streaming attraction, but the option will be there this weekend for some to go check it out.

The final small wide release of this trio is the animated film Charlie the Wonderdog, from Viva Pictures. This is a movie about a dog who gets superpowers after being abducted by aliens, and teams up with his kid owner to fight an evil cat that’s threatening humanity. The movie is small enough to not even have it’s own Wikipedia page, so if you’ve not heard of this, then don’t feel bad. That said, they did recruit Owen Wilson to voice the superdog in this movie. Viva Pictures is a very small animation studio as their biggest box office hit is “The Amazing Maurice” from 2023, which made $4.3 million total at the domestic box office. Last year they released “Pets on a Train” in 1,350 theaters, opening to $821,777, as well as “Grand Prix of Europe” in 950 theaters, opening to $370,490. Both of these towards the end of the year. But if the kids need something new to see over the holiday weekend and this happens to be in a theater close to you, this is an option, even if it’s not likely to be a big release or hit the top 10.

While that’s it for new wide releases, there’s also a trio of notable wide expansions over the holiday weekend. Going quickly through these, the most notable one is No Other Choice, which is South Korea’s official entry for best international film at the Oscars. This comes from director Park Chan-wook (“The Handmaiden,” “Oldboy”) and is about a man who goes to the extremes for new employment after being unemployed for several years. This has done very well in limited release, earning $1.4 million last week from just 147 theaters, outgrossing Angel Studios’ “I Was a Stranger,” despite the latter being in 1,400 theaters. In three weeks total of limited release, it’s already earned $3.7 million.

Not an Oscar film, but Gus Van Sant’s latest film Dead Man’s Wire will be expanding nationwide after earning $154,100 from 14 theaters the previous weekend. Van Sant has had a long, prestigious history as a filmmaker, but has two Oscar nominations, for “Good Will Hunting” and “Milk,” so some film lovers might be curious as to what he has up his sleeve next. The movie stars Bill Skarsgard and Dacre Montgomery, while also featuring Cary Elwes, Colman Domingo, and Al Pacino in the cast and tells the story of a 1977 event where Tony Kiritsis went into the office of Richard Hall, his mortgage broker, and held him hostage for 63 hours with a sawed-off shotgun wired with a “dead man’s wire,” meaning if the police shot Tony, the shotgun would go off and kill Richard Hall as well. This hostage event held the media and the police captive for this 63-hour period. The film is written by Austin Kolodney, who heard of this story via a podcast episode, then reached out to the makers of the 2018 documentary “Dead Man’s Line” to help him research and compile the information for the movie.

The final notable expansion will be The Choral, which is a British historical drama that premiered last year at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, then had it’s theatrical release in the U.K. in November. The movie is a World War I drama starring Ralph Fiennes and is about a choral society in a fictional town in England with an unconventional new choirmaster who challenges the towns conventions and helps the choir be a refuge for wounded soldiers, conflicted lovers, and men facing potential mandatory military service during the heavy emotional cost of a nation at war, all this leading to a performance of Edward Elgar’s “The Dream of Gerontius,” chosen because it was not written by a German. The movie was released in America in 4 theaters around Christmas, expanded to 17 theaters this past weekend, and will now expand into enough to be considered a nationwide expansion. It’s made $110,194 here so far in that limited release, as well as $6.9 million internationally.

And if all that’s not enough, Universal will be re-releasing the 2005 DreamWorks Animation hit Madagascar into theaters nationwide. So if parents have already taken their kids to “Zootopia 2,” and are not interested in “Charlie the Wonderdog,” or don’t have that as an option at their local cinema, a holiday trip to see “Madagascar” in theaters is also a choice that can be made. And perhaps burying the lede of all of this, the extended editions of The Lord of the Rings will be in theaters this weekend in celebration of their 25th Anniversary. On Friday, “The Fellowship of the Ring” will be in theaters, on Saturday will be “The Two Towers,” and on Sunday “The Return of the King.” This pattern will be repeated the following weekend on January 23 – 25.

January 23 – 25

Amazon MGM's "Mercy"

However the giant snow globe of the previous holiday weekend shakes out, with the nine new options for audiences, this fourth weekend of January will be a more traditional January weekend with three new options entering the market. The headlining act will be the sci-fi action film Mercy. Starring Chris Pratt, the movie is set in the “near future,” where a detective is on trial for murdering his wife and has 90 minutes to prove his innocence before the A.I. judge determines his fate. Previously in this story’s narrative, this detective, played by Chris Pratt, was one of the early champions of this new A.I. judiciary system and now has to go below a 92 percent probably of guilt or he’s going to get executed when the timer runs out. Chris Pratt is, of course, doing a lot of heavy lifting in the advertising as Amazon MGM, the movie’s distributor, is relying on his star power of being in just about every new franchise these days to sell audiences on this original sci-fi movie. Despite his massive franchise success, Pratt hasn’t done a whole lot of non-franchise, solo films, so this will be a test to see how many tickets his name can sell for a random January sci-fi film. The trailer also tries to elevate the movie’s prestige by noting it’s from “an Oscar-winning producer of ‘Oppenheimer’.” While true (said producer is Charles Roven), they are disguising the fact that this is from director Timur Bekmambetov, director of the 2012 film “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” and the 2016 remake of “Ben-Hur” that you probably forgot existed. The projection here is $10-15 million for the opening, which, depending on how the previous weekend’s battle of “Avatar” vs. “The Bone Temple” shakes out, should at least be enough for a top three debut.

Next on the schedule is the return of the Silent Hill horror franchise, aptly titled Return to Silent Hill. The first movie in the franchise was released in April 2006 and was directed by Christophe Gans. It was based on the 1999 video game “Silent Hill.” And while it got mostly panned by critics (a 33 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes), it performed well with a $20.2 million opening and has had a decent following since. It took them 6 years to release a sequel, “Silent Hill: Revelation” in 2012. Lionsgate also brought on a different director and made the movie a direct sequel to the first film rather than adapting another game. That sequel was not met with any sort of good reaction as it only opened to $8 million and had a matching 8 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes that make’s the first movie’s poor score look quite well. That type of reaction to a sequel does a great job of killing a franchise, which is why we’re now 14 years removed for a third movie. Fans of the first film might be excited at the idea that director Christophe Gans is back for this third film and the movie is based off a game, “Silent Hill 2.” It remains to be seen as to what the awareness of this movie is. And the major gap of time doesn’t help, but there definitely should be a niche crowd that is accepting of this movie’s existence.

In what feels like the lesser of the three new releases, in terms of box office potential, that is, is the musical drama Clika. This tells the story of a small town musician who pushes to carve out a place for himself in the new wave of Mexican-American music after a clip of himself performing one of his songs goes viral. Box Office Pro currently has this projected to open in the $2-4 million range, which feels appropriate, but it is worth noting that this is Sony and the trailer for this has 9.2 million views. Trailer views doesn’t always equate to box office numbers, but at the very least Sony has the potential to push awareness, especially if they manage to tap into Mexican-American market or the Latino community in general.

Finally, it’s worth pointing out that Oscar nominations are scheduled to be announced on the morning of Thursday, January 22. There’s always a handful of movies that expand into more theaters following the nominations after the newly found curiosity that the nominations have provided. “Hamnet” and “Marty Supreme” are certain to benefit from this. We might even see “Sinners” or “One Battle After Another” get put back into some theaters, even though they were early releases in 2025 and are available to stream on HBO Max. As mentioned in the previous week, “No Other Choice” will have already expanded at this point, but other international films such as “Sentimental Value,” “The Secret Agent,” or “It Was Just an Accident” could also expand. One other film here that is more on the periphery for nominations but is scheduled for it’s official wide expansion anyways is The Testament of Ann Lee, a movie that tells the story of the Shaker movement in the 18th Century with it’s founder Ann Lee, played by Amanda Seyfried. The movie has had great reviews, especially highlighting Seyfried’s performance. It’s being distributed by Searchlight, who does have a great history with the Oscars, but it hasn’t quite hit the sweet spot for awards precursors so far, for whatever reason. It’s best shot is probably Seyfried getting in for best actress, which is a potential upset nomination. Awards or not, this movie has been hiding in 4 theaters since Christmas and will finally be available for mainstream audiences to check out.

January 30 – February 1

20th Century Studios' "Send Help"

This final weekend of January in years past would actually be Super Bowl Sunday, given that Sunday is the first Sunday in February. Super Bowl Sunday has often been a weekend that Hollywood has avoided. But since the NFL expanded to a 17-game season and moved the Super Bowl to the second Sunday in February, Hollywood has had a hard time figuring out how to adjust to that. We’ll dive into that more next month, but this final weekend of January has a big horror film, a controversial documentary, and a handful of indie films that will try to do their best to make a name for themselves.

Beginning with the horror film, 20th Century Studios (so technically Disney) will be releasing Sam Raimi’s new flick Send Help. The movie stars Rachel McAdams as Linda and Dylan O’Brien as her boss Bradley. In the work scenario, Bradley is a sexist jerk who treats Linda terribly, but the tables turn when they are both stranded on a deserted island after a plane crash and suddenly it’s Linda who has control of the situation. Raimi was known as a horror director after helming the Evil Dead franchise in the 80s and 90s, as well as movies such as “A Simple Plan,” “The Gift,” and later in 2009 “Drag Me to Hell” before then doing the Spider-Man trilogy in the 2000s and becoming known as one who helped lead the modern superhero craze. So him returning to direct horror/thriller for the first time since “Drag Me to Hell” in 2009 certainly has the attention of horror fans, even though the trailer makes this look more along the thriller side of things (but perhaps surprises in the second half?). January is has historically been a great month for horror, especially in late January. And although “January horror” has it’s own negative stigma, the Raimi of it all makes this feel different, perhaps putting this more along the lines of “Split” than a typical January horror film. Box Office Pro expects this to open in the $12-18 million range and that could be a reasonable range and help this open to No. 1. A word of caution from last January would also note that positive buzz and good reviews could only get “Companion” to $9.1 million on this exact weekend, so there’s definitely a wide range of outcomes.

The controversial part of the weekend comes with the release of the documentary Melania from Amazon MGM. This is not necessarily a guaranteed theatrical success simply because people don’t often see documentaries in theaters. There’s a few rare exceptions, but not many. However, this is certainly a project that will spark conversation, for better or for worse. As the title suggests, this is a documentary following Melania Trump, the first lady of the United States, specifically in the time-frame of documenting her in the 20 days leading up to President Trump’s second inauguration. And this is definitely a pro-Trump and pro-Melania documentary, so make of that what you will. The twist is that the director of this documentary is Brett Ratner, who at one point was one of the big names in Hollywood until he was rightfully ousted from his career due to multiple sexual assault allegations. Ratner returning to the director’s chair for the first time since those allegations to direct a documentary about Melania Trump is certainly… one of the things that is now happening in 2026. Let’s move on.

And now for the trio of indie films that will attempt to make their mark on the weekend. We’ll start with the most notable indie studio of this group, A24, as they’re prepared to release The Moment, which is a mockumentary about Charli XCX playing a fictional version of herself as she navigates the complexities of fame and industry pressure while preparing for her arena tour debut. That means other artists like Taylor Swift are doing actual documentaries of their real-life tours and Charli XCX is doing… this instead, which in the trailer on YouTube has a lot of her fans praising this strange and unique decision. It’s possible that casual fans might be a bit confused at this, especially if they think it’s an actual documentary and not a fictional one. But that’s also par for the course for A24 as a studio, as they’re really good at finding unconventional indie films to release into the world. This will also be premiering at the Sundance Film Festival prior to its release in general theaters this weekend. Which, by the way, in the midst of everything we’ve talked about already this month, Sundance begins January 22 and goes through February 1.

The second film of our indie trio comes from Markiplier Studios as they release the sci-fi horror flick Iron Lung. And I’ll be honest in saying at initial glance I asked the question of “What in the world is Markiplier Studios and who is this Mark Fischbach that is writing and directing this movie?” In a rather sheepish discovery that my brain did not want to connect with at first, this is Markiplier. The YouTuber. With 38.1 million subscribers to his channel. Oooohhh! And this movie, which is an adaptation of the 2022 video game of the same name, is set to be his first theatrically released film his directed. In addition to directing, he also wrote, produced, edited, and starred in the movie. And is using his own “Markiplier Studios” to distribute the movie. At first when I saw Box Office Pro projecting this one to potentially open to $15-25 million, I thought that felt like a mistake, but diving deep it makes a lot more sense. And suddenly the connection in my mind is to 2023’s “Talk to Me,” a horror film also directed by a YouTuber duo (Danny and Michael Philippou, aka RackRacka). That movie opened to $10.4 million and had a solid run at the box office, finishing with $48.3 million domestically. That means horror fans might have a tough decision to make between “Send Help” and “Iron Lung,” which could risk the movies cannibalizing each other, or one doing a lot better than the other. Or horror fans might just have a lot of fun and go see both. Ultimately reviews will help decide what happens here.

Last and… potentially least… is Black Bear Pictures distributing the latest Jason Statham action film Shelter. This movie has Jason Statham playing a recluse who ends up rescuing a young girl from the sea. One thing leads to another and we learn that Statham was a former assassin and he’s now forced to go on a killing spree against his former organization to protect this girl. In other words, a Jason Statham action film. Boom boom. Pow pow. Kick. Punch. Bang bang. The plot is important, I suppose, but the last part is what people are really searching for. It’s basically the same movie as his last two movies, “The Beekeeper” and “A Working Man,” both released towards the beginning of 2024 and 2025, respectively. Both actually opened with a similar total around $15 million (“The Beekeeper” with $16.6 million and “A Working Man” with $15.5 million), so that’s a positive sign for this one, if the same Statham fans come out to play. Black Bear Pictures as a studio has been around since 2011, but they recently launched a U.S. distribution division in 2025 and their first U.S. release was “Christy,” which opened in 2,011 theaters to just $1.3 million, making it one of the worst openings ever for a movie released in at least 2,000 theaters. Black Bear is hoping to do a little better this time around. Box Office Pro is projecting $4-7 million for its opening, but with two horror films, a Jason Statham action film, a music mockumentary, and a political documentary, this could make for quite the interesting battle inside the top 10 this weekend.

Movie Preview: December 2025

Welcome to the final month of the year! And Happy Thanksgiving and a Merry Christmas to all who celebrate!

After a historically bad October, this past November was much better as “Wicked: For Good” and “Zootopia 2” gave the box office a much needed kick of adrenaline. As a whole, the month earned $794.4 million total domestically, which is below last November’s $900.7 million total when “Wicked” and “Moana 2” ruled, and a far cry from the November record of $1.09 billion in 2012, but we’ll take the wins that we can get. Both “Wicked: For Good” and “Zootopia 2” should carry on throughout the Christmas holiday, especially worldwide for the latter, which opened to over $500 million worldwide, boosted by a huge opening in China that doubled its domestic debut.

The Christmas box office will add at least one huge blockbuster release to the mix, which could perhaps wind up as the movie of the year if history tells us anything. A good deal of question marks with the rest of the schedule, but there will at least be options for people, which includes snakes, killer animatronics, ping pong, SpongeBob, and Neil Diamond music. So let’s dive in and explore what Santa is bringing to a theater near you this holiday season!

As always, release date information for this post is courtesy of the-numbers.com and boxofficepro.com. The movies listed are the ones currently scheduled for a wide release in the United States and Canada and are always subject to change.

December 5 – 7

Universal's "Five Nights at Freddy's 2"

The main new attraction to theaters this past weekend, joining the ranks of “Zootopia 2” and “Wicked: For Good,” was another fellow second film in Five Nights at Freddy’s 2. An adaptation of the popular video game series, the first movie told the story of security guard Mike Schmidt, played by Josh Hutcherson, who takes a job at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, an abandoned pizzeria, soon to learn that the pizzeria’s animatronics are possessed by the spirits of children murdered decades earlier by serial killer William Afton, played by Matthew Lillard. Now we’re a year later in this second movie with more secrets to reveal and origins to discover. Mike’s 11-year-old sister Abby, who had established a connection with the animatronics in the first movie, has had the fate of her friends hidden from her. They call out to her, though, so she heads out to try to find them. And that sets into motion the rest of the plot. The first movie was a massive success, opening to a staggering $80 million. It fell off the face of the Earth after with a huge 76 percent second weekend drop and had a huge disparity in reviews between fans of the game and everyone else, so the projections for this second film were all over the map. Both Box Office Pro and Deadline had it pegged in the $35-45 million range going into the weekend. After Thursday previews, The-Numbers projected it at $55 million. It beat all of those projections quite handily with a $64 million debut, so a drop-off from the first, but not by very much. And more than enough to easily cover the production budget in just one weekend. Reviews were even more polarized than the first, with a 15 percent critics score and an 88 percent audience score from Rotten Tomatoes, so it’s likely to take another massive tumble in weekend 2, but with this result in the bag, you can be guaranteed that a third movie will be on the way before too long.

“Zootopia 2” and “Wicked: For Good” rounded out the top 3 with $43.4 million and $17.4 million, respectively. That trio of second films accounted for over 80 percent of the total weekend box office, so that’s what most people were interested in, but there were quite a few smaller options that entered the market that are worth talking about. Leading the way among that group was Jujutsu Kaisen: Execution. Anime has done very well recently, headlined by “Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle” opening to a record-breaking $70.6 million back in September. We also had “Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc” opening to $18 million in October. “Jujutsu Kaisen” is another popular anime that certainly has the potential to make noise, but “Jujutsu Kaisen: Execution” is a compilation film that previews the third season of the show rather than being its own standalone adventure. Thus it opening to $10.1 million from 1,833 theaters put in the exact realm of “Demon Slayer: To the Swordsmith Village” ($10.1 million March 2023) and “Demon Slayer: To the Hashira Training” ($11.5 million in February 2024), which were also compilation films rather than standalone movies like “Infinity Castle.”

And speaking of a compilation of sorts, Lionsgate finally released Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair into about 1,198 theaters this weekend. In the filmography of Quentin Tarantino, the man himself considers “Kill Bill: Volume 1” and “Kill Bill: Volume 2” as one movie, even though they were released separately in October 2003 and April 2004, respectively. A combined feature has been talked about for a long time, but finally came to fruition with “The Whole Bloody Affair,” which plays both movies back to back, along with an animated short created by Tarantino and Epic Games from the video game “Fortnite.” This was certainly a fun event for long-time Tarantino fans, but a total runtime of 4 hours 35 minutes is why it naturally had a limit for box office earnings, both in terms of having limited available screenings and causing more casual fans to shy away. That said, opening in 6th place with $3.4 million was an impressive result, all things considered.

Another theatrical event that hit theaters was Fathom Events and Sony Pictures Classics teaming up to release Merrily We Roll Along into just over 1,000 theaters, earning $1.3 million. This is the Broadway musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and the book by George Furth, which tells the story of three friends whose lives and friendships devolve over the years, but told in reverse chronology, so starting at the end with their lowest moment and ending at their youthful best. Production began on a movie adaptation of this by Richard Linklater back in 2019 with Paul Mescal, Ben Platt, and Beanie Feldstein, but this is apparently being done “Boyhood” style. In other words, Linklater is actually filming this over the course of 20 years. So check back around the year 2040 for when that comes out. We’ll see if I’m still doing these movie previews then. In the meantime, while the Broadway production original premiered in 1981, this release is the 2023 Broadway revival starring Jonathan Groff, Daniel Radcliffe, and Lindsay Mendez. This is, of course, released “Hamilton” style, a recording of the Broadway show that is getting a theatrical release.

Nope. We’re not done yet. In addition to these theatrical events that came out, there were two other smaller movies. The first being Fackham Hall, which is described by distributor Bleeker Street as a spoof film that crosses “Downton Abbey” with “Airplane!” and “Monty Python.” The setting is 1930s England and the movie follows a pick-pocket Eric Noone who lands a job at a unique English manor house, rises through the ranks, has a forbidden romance with the lady of the house, then gets framed for a murder. Eric is played by Ben Radcliffe, with a supporting cast that includes Tom Felton, Thomasin McKenzie, Damian Lewis, Katherine Waterston, Lizzie Hopley, Emma Laird, and Jimmy Carr, the latter of whom is part of the writing crew that includes him, Patrick Carr, and the British comedy trio The Dawson Brothers. The movie, directed by Jim O’Hanlon, debuted in more theaters than “Merrily We Roll Along,” with 1,112 theaters, but debuted outside the top 10 with just $620,909.

The second smaller film comes from IFC Entertainment Group, and that’s their latest film 100 Nights of Hero, which is a historical fantasy romance written and directed by Julia Jackman, based on the graphic novel “The One Hundred Nights of Hero,” which itself is based on the Middle Eastern folktale “One Thousand and One Nights.” The idea here follows a woman (Maika Monroe) whose neglectful husband (Amir El-Masry) leaves her alone for a hundred days to test her fidelity, and she then becomes entangled in a love triangle with her loyal maid (Emma Corrin) and her husband’s seductive friend (Nicholas Galitzine). The movie also stars Charli xcx, Richard E. Grant, and Felicity Jones in supporting roles. So yes, that’s a total of six new options in theaters this weekend. This one predictably came in the caboose as it was only released in 828 theaters. Even with that, though, it had a pretty bad per theater average and only ended up earning $250,701.

On top of all of that, I brought it up briefly last month, but Hamnet wound up opening in 119 theaters around Thanksgiving and expanded into 744 theaters this weekend. Despite being the lowest theater count of the movies I’ve mentioned in this section, it actually wound up in 8th place with $2.3 million, well ahead of the previous three. This definitely seems like an indication that the heavy awards buzz is catching people’s attention and translating into box office results. That also means this is likely to continue to expand, or at least hang around in theaters, over the next several months. Oscar nominations will be announced on January 22, with the Oscars themselves taking place on March 15. “Hamnet” is expected to be a huge contender in that. As a reminder, this is the Chloé Zhao directed film starring Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal as William and Agnes Shakespeare, whose death of their child helped inspire the play Hamlet.

December 12 – 14

Universal's "How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)"

This second weekend of December is what could be referred to as the calm before the storm at the box office. There are three new releases that I’ll talk about, but they’re all of the smaller variety. The battle for No. 1 at the box office will likely come down to “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2” vs. “Zootopia 2” once again. Despite “Freddy’s” winning by a score of $64.0 million to $43.4 million this past weekend, there’s a very strong chance that “Zootopia 2” actually takes back the lead. The first “Freddy’s” flick fell a massive 76 percent in weekend 2 and earned just $19 million after its $80 million debut. That was compounded by the fact that it was available day-and-date on Peacock, but it having close to zero appeal outside the core audience was the main reason, which has clearly remained the same with this sequel. Plus, horror sequels in general are often extremely frontloaded. If we assume a drop in the realm of 65-70 percent, that gives it a range of $19-22 million, with a similar 76 percent drop equaling $15 million. Meanwhile, “Zootopia 2” has followed in a similar trajectory as “Moana 2” last year. In its second and third weekends, “Moana 2” fell 63 percent and 48 percent, respectively. “Zootopia 2” held a little better in its second weekend with a 57 percent drop, so if we assume a 40-45 percent third weekend drop, that gives it a range of $24-26 million. So the race could be close, but the edge seems to be with “Zootopia 2.”

Before I get to the three smaller new releases, the biggest “new” release is actually a re-release of an older film as Ron Howard’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas, starring Jim Carrey as the Grinch and Taylor Momsen as Cindy Lou Who, returns to theaters. The movie earned $260 million domestically in its initial run in 2000, the highest grossing movie that year. It’s had a bit of a polarized reaction over the years and has an official rotten splatter on Rotten Tomatoes with 50 percent from critics, as well as a 59 percent score from audiences, but despite that has become a holiday staple for many. It shows up high on the streaming charts every holiday season and this time around is available on both Peacock and Amazon Prime. As far as its theatrical re-release, it’s poised to be released in about 1,600 theaters, but re-releases as a whole can be very unpredictable. “Coraline” earned $9.8 million in its first weekend of re-release last August, and wound up adding $33.6 million to the movie’s overall total over the next month, but then there’s other re-releases that have been completely ignored. “The Grinch” seems like a movie people will go out for, but many might simply choose to stream it at home instead.

Moving onto the actual new releases, I have no theater count estimates for these three, but I’m guessing they might be in the range of 800-1,200 theaters, give or take a bit, putting them in the realm of “Merrily We Roll Along,” “Fackham Hall,” and “100 Nights of Hero.” The leg up among these three seems like it will be Ella McCay, which comes to us via 20th Century Studios. The movie is directed by James L. Brooks, who is the co-creator of shows like “The Simpsons,” “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “Taxi,” as well as the director of movies such as “Terms of Endearment” (1983), “Broadcast News” (1987), and “As Good as It Gets” (1997). Despite the high prestige in both the film and TV realm, the last two movies he directed (“Spanglish” in 2004 and “How Do You Know” in 2010) weren’t particularly well received. And early word on “Ella McCay,” which was not released in any festivals or promoted as an awards contender, seems to be muted at best, as well. That said, the movie itself is about a character named Ella McCay, played by Emma Mackey, as she tries to juggle her family and work life, and is thus a comedy about the people you love and how to survive them. In addition to Mackey, the movie co-stars Woody Harrelson, Kumail Nanjiani, Rebecca Hall, Albert Brooks, and Jamie Lee Curtis in various supporting roles, so that cast and crew is likely good enough to convince some to show up, even if the movie does have the reviews or awards buzz it needs for it to become a true breakout.

From Roadside Attractions, our second smaller film is Dust Bunny, which appears to be a hybrid of action, horror, and thriller. The movie is about an 8-year-old girl, played by Sophie Sloan, who hires a hitman to help kill the monster under her bed after she’s convinced that it ate her whole family. The hired hitman is played by Mads Mikkelsen, while Sigourney Weaver also co-stars in the movie. In contrast to our previous movie, this one actually did get released in a film festival, the Toronto International Film Festival, and carries with a strong, early critics score of 88 percent. This isn’t the type of movie to be an awards player, but the festival release and strong reviews is the correct formula for it to gain the proper amount of buzz heading into its release. Whether that translates into immediate box office success or simply results in positive word of mouth that helps it later on is a different story. Roadside Attractions has released 8 movies this year in at least 700 theaters. Only one of those had an opening weekend higher than $1 million and that was “The Home,” which opened to $1.04 million from 1,015 theaters. As a whole, those 8 movies have had an average opening weekend of $536,016 from an average of 863 theaters. That’s the range that “Dust Bunny” is looking at to start its run.

The final outing of the week is the Christmas slasher flick, Silent Night, Deadly Night. No, this is not a release of the original 1984 movie. This is the latest remake of that movie. And I say “latest” because this is the second time they’ve remade it, following the 2012 movie “Silent Night.” It’s also the seventh movie total in this franchise, as the original series of films had five movies, although only the first three have the original characters. The very first of these movies involved a character named Billy Chapman who, as a young boy, witnessed a violent crime committed by a man in a Santa suit, causing him to be deeply scarred and terrified of Christmas. When he’s older, he’s forced into dressing as Santa for his job, which causes his grip on reality to shatter, which then sends him on a violent killing spree where he feels the need to punish the “naughty.” The rest of the franchise then goes various directions with different interpretations of the “killer Santa” idea. Only the original has Billy Chapman as the main antagonist, which is what this new remake goes back to – Billy Chapman as killer Santa. The movie premiered at Fantastic Fest in September and will be distributed by Cineverse, who released “Terrifier 3” last year and this year’s remake of “The Toxic Avenger” back in August.

December 19 – 21

20th Century Studios' "Avatar: Fire and Ash"

The event film of the month, and possibly the year, gets released the weekend before Christmas and will have the entire holiday season and beyond to rack up all the money. That movie is, of course, Avatar: Fire and Ash. James Cameron has been doing almost nothing but work on Avatar films for the majority of the last 30 years. And yes, 30 years. He, of course, released a tiny film called “Titanic” in 1997, but development of “Avatar” began in 1994 and was initially planned on being released in 1999. That movie ended up coming out in 2009. Then it took another 13 years for “Avatar: The Way of Water” to come out, which was released in December 2022. With that timeline in mind, one might be surprised that “Fire and Ash” only took an additional three years to come out, but reports are that “The Way of Water” and “Fire and Ash” were shot simultaneously, along with parts of Avatar 4 to account for the aging of the child actors. That might account for at least part of the reason why it took 13 years to get the second movie out. They were, more or less, doing three movies at once, while Cameron also continued to work on scripts for all four sequels. Anyways, this fourth movie, as the title suggests, focuses on much of the fire elements of the Pandora world as Cameron has so far used each movie to explore one of the elements. Question is, is he going through traditional set of elements (Earth, Water, Fire, Air), or, as some on the internet have suggested, is he using the Chinese Wuxing system (Wood, Water, Fire, Earth, Metal)? The latter would certainly fit the currently planned five-movie arc, and the first movie would fit into either “Wood” or “Earth” with its heavy forestry imagery, but I guess we’ll see in 2029 when Avatar 4 comes out if it deals with “Air” or “Earth/Metal.”

Financially speaking, the first two Avatar movies both made over $2 billion worldwide, with the first currently at $2.9 billion, while “The Way of Water” hit $2.3 billion. Thus this third movie’s domestic release is probably slightly less significant given that these movies are massive worldwide hits. The initial run of “Avatar” in 2009 finished with $749 million domestically and has had a couple of re-releases to boost it to its current $785.2 million. Given how massive and culturally impactful the movie was, some prematurely celebrated the second movie’s “failure” when it *only* opened to $134.1 million. But then it held extremely well each week, similar to the first movie (which only opened to $77 million), finishing with $684.1 million domestically. The most recent long range forecast from Box Office Pro has “Fire and Ash” pegged in the $100-120 million for its opening, so a slight drop-off from “The Way of Water,” but not by much. The top domestic movie of the year so far is still “A Minecraft Movie” with $423.9 million. It would require quite the massive drop-off for “Fire and Ash” to not hit that mark. Worldwide is a different story as the Chinese movie “Ne Zha 2” made over $2 billion, the specifics depending on which site you look at, so “Fire and Ash” would likely have to match the second to get that mark as well, which is definitely doable, regardless of its domestic total.

While Avatar will be the biggest holiday movie outing, there are a few other options for the pre-Christmas weekend that should actually do decently well. The first of them is The SpongeBob Movie: Search for Squarepants. While the animated show continues to run – currently in the midst of of Season 16 after initially premiering in 1999 – this will be the fourth time the characters have graced the big screen, with the first time being way back in 2004. We then had “Sponge Out of Water” in 2015, followed by “Sponge on the Run” in 2020 during COVID. This SpongeBob adventure has our main character facing off against the ghost of the Flying Dutchman, voiced by Mark Hamill, down in the depths of the ocean, with many of the other characters going on a journey to rescue him. In regards to financial comparisons, the first movie opened to $32 million back in 2004, while “Sponge Out of Water” nearly doubled that with an opening of $55.4 million. “Sponge On the Run” isn’t a valid comparison due to COVID. And honestly, those first two are tricky comparisons as well, given the time gap. Adjusted for ticket price inflation, those numbers adjust to $58.3 million and $74.3 million for their openings, which seems way too high. Box Office Pro is projecting $25-35 million in their long range forecast, which does feel a bit more realistic.

Perhaps the most relevant to the Christmas season itself is Angel Studios releasing the animated movie David, which tells the story of the prophet David from the Bible, going from humble servant who killed Goliath to the king of the land as the movie appears to see how much of his story it can fit into one movie rather than focusing on one specific event, while adding musical numbers along the way. The trailer also mentions that this is “the legend you know, but the story you don’t,” which is a little odd considering his whole story is in the Bible, but perhaps there’s some creative liberties included in order to make for a more entertaining and surprising movie. Despite this being a second animated movie released this weekend, the target audiences here are slightly different, with SpongeBob aiming towards younger kids and fans of the show, while “David” aims to entertain Christian audiences. Both movies seem like they can easily co-exist throughout the holiday, even if SpongeBob opens higher. I’ve also talked many times on this monthly series about Angel Studios and how most of their releases consistently open in the $3-5 million range. However, this does seem like it has all the makings to be one of the exceptions to that. In which case, the easy comparison is “The King of Kings,” which opened to $19.4 million earlier this year around the Easter season. If it manages to beat that, it’ll win the prize of highest opening movie for Angel Studios, although it doesn’t seem likely to come close to their highest domestic total, which is still “Sound of Freedom” with $184.2 million.

From director Paul Feig, the final movie on this weekend’s list is the psychological thriller The Housemaid. Not to be confused with the 2010 South Korean film of the same name, which itself is a remake of a 1960 film, this new movie is an adaptation of a 2022 best-selling novel by Freida McFadden, not an American remake of a popular foreign film. Confusingly, both are about a maid joining a wealthy household with plenty of secrets, but the Korean film is more revolved around a dangerous affair that takes place, while this new book and movie is more revolved around the discovery of hidden abuse, manipulation, secrets, and a maid with a criminal past. That maid is played by Sydney Sweeney, who is thinks she has simply taken a job in an effort to get her life back together. Amanda Seyfried plays the wealthy wife who hires her. Director Paul Feig has had quite the varied career, mostly working in the comedy realm, but this one calls back to his 2018 thriller “A Simple Favor,” starring Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively. That one opened to $16 million back in September 2018, which seems like a fair goal for this movie. Box Office Pro has it listed in the $25-35 million range as well, but that seems a bit optimistic. Sydney Sweeney is a popular name, but not a guaranteed box office draw as just last month her movie “Christy” bombed hard, earning only $1.3 million in its opening weekend in 2,011 theaters, so ultimately reviews and audience reaction will be key in determining if people are in the mood for a thriller during the holidays.

December 25 – 28

Sony's "Anaconda"

Merry Christmas to all and a Happy New Year! This year, Christmas falls on a Thursday, which should align nicely with the box office weekend as all three new releases have chosen to open right on Christmas Day, which is often customary, regardless of what day of the week the holiday is on. People stay home with families on Christmas Eve, but Christmas Day is often a popular movie going day. This month, the big Christmas Day release involves Jack Black, Paul Rudd, and a giant snake with the remake of Anaconda. This is not the first time Jack Black has shown up during the holidays with a remake/reboot of a popular franchise. Both of the recent Jumanji movies were holiday releases and did very well. Sony, who is the distributor for both franchises, certainly would hope for a similar result. While a giant killer snake might seem like it’s better suited for a Halloween release than a Christmas one, the goal here seems to be aiming more for action comedy than campy horror, with the setup being a group of friends setting out to remake “Anaconda” only to run into a real giant snake that’s hunting them down. The goal here is a $30 million opening, which would actually be close to what “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” started at around Christmas 2017. That opened to just $36.2 million before going on to be the fourth highest grossing movie released in 2017, with $404.5 million total domestically. A reminder that December releases are historically a lot more backloaded, so if you catch on with good word of mouth, you can hold on and become a huge hit, even if the opening is seen as disappointing.

The next release goes into the world of ping pong with Josh Safdie’s new movie Marty Supreme. Josh and Benny Safdie, known professionally as the Safdie Brothers have worked together on movies such as “Good Time” and “Uncut Gems.” This year there was a bit of brotherly competition as the two temporarily split up to do their own films. Benny wrote and directed “The Smashing Machine,” starring Dwayne Johnson as UFC fighter Mark Kerry. That one had the initial heads up, hitting all the festivals and getting the October wide release, with plenty of awards buzz for both Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt. However, momentum stalled out with mixed reviews from mainstream critics (as opposed to the festival audience) and a straight up bomb at the box office as general audiences weren’t interested. And now that opens the door for Josh Safdie to drive in and take the win over Benny. Early word on this one is that it has a much closer feel to a classic Safdie Brothers movie and thus has much stronger reviews, which seems to be pushing it towards heavier awards momentum. That’s positive in the niche awards realm, but will that translate to box office success? Timothée Chalamet is the star here as aspiring ping pong champion Marty Mauser, loosely inspired by American ping pong player Marty Reisman – making this officially a work of fiction rather than a sports biopic. And while Dwayne Johnson proved that star power doesn’t guarantee box office results, last Christmas Chalamet led “A Complete Unknown” to a domestic total of $75 million and 8 Oscar nominations after an opening weekend of $11.7 million. This year he hopes to win the Oscar for best actor, instead of just being the runner up, a goal that he’s clearly stated. He’s in good position, so we’ll see if this is his year.

The final movie on the docket for this post is NOT a Neil Diamond biopic, even though the initial trailer made me think it might be. The movie is Song Sung Blue, which is taken from a Neil Diamond song, but is in fact a biopic about Mike and Claire Sardina of the band Lightning & Thunder, a husband and wife Neil Diamond tribute band. The movie is actually based on the 2008 documentary of the same name that tells their story of soaring success and devastating heartbreak in their musical journey together. The movie stars Hugh Jackman as Mike and Kate Hudson as Claire. In the midst of me typing this, Hudson snagged a Golden Globe nomination, proving that’s hovering under the radar in the awards season, which could give it a boost. Although that being the only Globes nomination also shows that perhaps it isn’t a huge front-runner for awards. Early critical reaction has been a tad bit muted, but some critics mentioned that it has the potential to be a huge crowd pleaser. For those who want to listen to Hugh Jackman belting out “Sweet Caroline” or watch a tearjerking romance, this could easily work. I used the “A Complete Unknown” for a comparison to “Marty Supreme,” given the Chalamet connection, but that being a music biopic could also be a decent comparison here. Both seem like $10-15 million openers on Christmas weekend, with the potential to hold well depending on how the audiences react.

Movie Preview: November 2025

The holiday box office has arrived! Presumably to rescue us from what was one of the worst Octobers in a long time. Earning just $428.6 million domestically, this was the lowest grossing October at the domestic box office since October 1998 ($422.2 million), not counting COVID, of course. As low as that was, it wasn’t the low on the year, actually. That belongs to March, which only earned $397.7 million. It’s not been all doom and gloom in 2025, though, as July hit $1.116 billion. People have proven that they’re willing to still show up to theaters if there’s something they’re interested in, but that’s going to be countered with slower months like the one we just had, creating a rollercoaster of a year.

 For those that read my October movie preview, you’ll likely remember that last month’s performance wasn’t due to a lack of options. I went on quite the deep dive as there were at least four new wide releases on every weekend except for the final one. Despite this, there just wasn’t a lot of movies that mainstream options were particularly interested in. The biggest opening weekend of the month wound up being Taylor Swift’s album release party at $34.1 million, but that was only in theaters for that weekend. “Tron: Ares” was positioned as the month’s big blockbuster release, but that failed harder than the first two movies. It still won the month in regards to money earned solely in October, finishing at $65.7 million, with “Black Phone 2” in second place with $55.9 million. But when both movies are officially finished with their theatrical runs, “Black Phone 2” will wind up as the overall winner at the domestic box office. “Black Phone 2” was a success based on its budget, and had a bigger opening than the first movie, but if your month’s biggest movie was a low-budget horror film that will finish with less than $100 million, that’s when you know things weren’t the best.

On a personal note, I think people have plenty to catch up on, as there were plenty of good movies that did come out in October that the majority of audiences skipped. But these monthly movie previews aren’t meant as personal reviews or recommendations. I’m just sharing what’s on the calendar and analyzing box office results. And from that vantage point, box office results say that most people didn’t care about what October provided them. But they will care in November, I can guarantee you that. We have what’s poised as the movie event of the year. And you all know exactly what I’m talking about. We’ll get to that in this post, as well as everything before and after, so let’s dive in!

As always, release date information for the post is courtesy of the-numbers.com and boxofficepro.com. The movies listed are the ones currently scheduled for a wide release in the United States and Canada and are always subject to change.

November 7 – 9

20th Century Studios' "Predator: Badlands"

The opening weekend of November that most recently concluded started with five new movies opening in at least 1,000 theaters. Opening at No. 1 was Predator: Badlands at just over $40 million, which already gives it a higher opening than anything from October. This is a franchise that began in 1987 and has a premise that’s simple enough. The first movie followed a special-operations rescue team sent on a mysterious mission in a Central American jungle under murky and mysterious circumstances. The rescue mission quickly turns into a fight for survival as they encounter “the Predator,” a skilled and technologically advanced extraterrestrial that hunts the worthy for sport. Future installments have expanded across centuries, worlds, and cultures as we follow humanity’s battles with this alien species. “Predator: Badlands,” specifically, takes the battle to a hostile alien world, with Elle Fanning and Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi in the lead roles. It’s the seventh solo “Predator” film and ninth overall if you count the two “Alien vs. Predator” movies.

Taking away those last two and looking just at the solo “Predator” films, they’ve had a more spotty track record theatrically as compared to their cousin “Alien” franchise. The most recent two prior to “Badlands” didn’t even get released in theaters. Thus when we look at the previous four theatrically released “Predator” movies, and adjust for ticket price inflation – given that the franchise has now spanned five decades – the average adjusted opening weekend is $31.6 million domestically. The average adjusted domestic total is $96.7 million. Compare that to the “Alien” franchise, which has comparable averages of $42.4 million for the opening weekends and $172.5 million for the domestic total. Unadjusted, the recent two “Predator” movies, “Predators” in 2010 and “The Predator” in 2018, both opened to just under $25 million and finished with just over $50 million. Those would’ve been the comparable prediction for “Badlands,” a $25-30 million opening. Instead it followed closer to “Alien: Romulus,” the most recent “Alien” movie from 2024, which opened to $42.0 million. Thus, adjusted or not, “Badlands” has now become the highest opening weekend for a solo “Predator” movie. Given it’s 85 percent Rotten Tomatoes score from critics and 95 percent audience score, along with the holiday release, it’s quite feasible that this finishes near the $105.3 million that “Romulus” ended with.

While “Predator: Badlands” was the main event this past weekend, as I mentioned earlier there were five total movies that opened in over 1,000 theaters. The other four all opened below $5 million, so we’ll go through them quicker. The winner among those four was Sarah’s Oil from Amazon MGM, which is not what I would’ve predicted. It had the higher theater count at 2,410 theaters, as well as an A+ CinemaScore from audiences, so in hindsight that makes sense. The movie tells the story of Sarah Rector, an African American girl born in Oklahoma Indian Territory in the early 1900s who believes there is oil beneath the barren land she’s allotted. Historical spoiler alert – there was. Martin Scorsese also covered an element of this with his recent movie “Killers of the Flower Moon.” But instead of a dark and depressing tale, “Sarah’s Oil” tells the positive, uplifting story of a young girl whose faith and fortune was proven right. The movie was written, directed, and produced by Cyrus Nowresteh and was based on the 2014 book “Searching for Sarah Rector: The Richest Black Girl in America,” by Tonya Bolden. The official opening was $4.3 million in fourth place, so not huge, but movies that get an A+ CinemaScore often have a habit of sticking around.

Just below “Sarah’s Oil” in fifth place with $3.9 million was the war film Nuremberg. This is a movie that stars Russell Crowe, Rami Malek, Leo Woodall, John Slattery, Mark O’Brien, Richard E. Grant, and Michael Shannon – that being the order of the cast on the poster – and is about… Nuremberg. Specifically, though, this follows the Nuremberg trials, just after the conclusion of World War II, where the Allied Forces are trying to figure out the best course of action following the defeat of Nazi Germany. The focus of the narrative follows Rami Malek as Douglas Kelley, an American psychiatrist who is tasked with determining whether Nazis prisoners are fit to stand trial for their war crimes. The movie had a good enough critics score at 69 percent, and a high 95 percent audience score, it just didn’t garner much interest from the general public. Under better circumstances, this would be the type of movie that is very awards friendly, and it had the proper release strategy to make its case. It just likely needed a better reaction.

The final two wide releases could slip into the even slightly more ignored category. Opening in eighth place with just $2.6 million was the psychological drama Die My Love, from Scottish filmmaker Lynne Ramsey. This is a movie starring Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson as Jackson and Grace, a happily married couple who movie into a remote house in Montana, left to them by Jackson’s uncle who has recently passed away. However, happy and playful quickly goes away as a lonely Grace begins to develop postpartum depression after the birth of their first child, with Jackson becoming less and less present in their relationship. This depression gets worse and worse as the movie goes on. And it leads to a place where mainstream audiences weren’t quite ready for. Despite positive reaction from festivals, the movie earned a D+ CinemaScore. Perhaps the disconnect comes from a lack of knowledge of the director. This is Ramsey’s fifth feature film, and her previous work includes the likes of “We Need to Talk About Kevin” and “You Were Never Really Here,” so she doesn’t exactly make movies with rainbows and butterflies, if you know what I mean. Despite the $2.6 million opening, the story here is a little different as this is now her highest grossing film. And not only is this her first movie to open in wide release, but it’s also the only movie of hers to hit wide release in any weekend. The previous high was 233 theaters. Given the low opening and poor audience reaction, perhaps this is a movie that actually should’ve started in a fewer number of theaters and expanded wide rather than opening wide right off the bat.

If you think that’s bad, though, the boxing movie Christy was our final wide release. Despite opening in 2,011 theaters, it earned just $1.3 million, unable to even crack the top 10, opening in 11th place. This was actually one of the top 10 worst openings ever for a movie that opened in at least 2,000 theaters. The movie follows Sydney Sweeney as Christy Martin, who was one of the best-known and most successful female boxers in the 1990s. The narrative of the movie spans from 1989 to 2010, showcasing a bit of her career along the way, but focusing mostly on her abusive marriage with her husband James Martin, who was 25 years her senior and her trainer when they were married. A marriage that Christy called a marriage of convenience, especially considering she was aware that she was a lesbian from a young age. Christy not only had to deal with an abusive husband, but also homophobic parents. Sydney Sweeney has received a lot of strong praise for her acting performance, which has even sparked awards buzz for her. Although the movie being dead on arrival at the box office might make that a bit more of an uphill climb as her name alone wasn’t able to sell this.

On the more limited front real quick, the animated film Grand Prix of Europe was an even worse case scenario than the others mentioned. It opened in 950 theaters, but could only manage $370,490. Fathom Events did release Karen Kingsbury’s The Christmas Ring in 1,415 theaters, a romance film about a military widow who falls in love with searching for her lost family heirloom. But this movie didn’t fare a whole lot better than “Grand Prix of Europe,” opening to $676,073. Coming awfully close to these two movies, despite opening in just 4 theaters, was Sentimental Value, which grabbed $200,031 from those 4 theaters, for one of the higher per theater averages of the year. The movie is from director Joachim Trier, who also saw critical acclaim from his recent film “The Worst Person in the World,” which got 2 Oscar nominations. “Sentimental Value” is predicted by many to get a whole lot more than that, and perhaps compete for best picture. So look for this to build off this opening and expand in future weeks.

November 14 – 16

Lionsgate's "Now You See Me: Now You Don't"

The second weekend of November should include a close battle for the top spot. “Predator: Badlands” will certainly be in play. If it follows “Alien: Romulus,” a second weekend total around $16 million should be the result. Hoping to rekindle the magic and win the weekend, though, will be Now You See Me: Now You Don’t, which is the third movie in the “Now You See Me” franchise. The first movie was released in 2013 and was a bit of a magic trick of it’s own. The themes presented were that magic is a sleight of hand and a misdirection. As such, the movie presented itself as a group of magicians performing a series of tricks, but at it’s core actually followed Mark Ruffalo’s character, who was seeking for revenge after an early betrayal in his life. The movie got mixed reaction from critics, but a much stronger one from the audience, which saw its $29.4 million opening translate into a domestic total of $117.7 million. Three years later, the whole gang was back… but to lesser results overall. Not disliked, but perhaps a more muted reaction. It’s $22.4 million opening led to a domestic total of $65.1 million. Now we have the third movie and the question we have here is… is it six years too late? It’s been nine years since the second and 12 years since the first, so it seems like a movie that should’ve opened in 2019, not 2025. Will that matter, though? Or will people enjoy a reunion. Again, the whole gang is back, with a whole lot of extras. The other question will be… what tricks do they have up their sleeve this time? The expected opening is somewhere in the realm of the first two – about $25-30 million.

Competing with “Now You See Me” and “Predator: Badlands” for positioning in the top three will be the latest Edgar Wright movie, The Running Man. Edgar Wright is a director known for the Cornetto Trilogy (“Shaun of the Dead,” “Hot Fuzz,” “The World’s End”), as well as the likes of “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” and “Baby Driver.” With his latest film, he’s taking on Stephen King, who wrote “The Running Man” novel in 1982 under his pseudonym Richard Bachman. The story of the novel is set in a dystopian future where the nation’s economy is in ruins and world violence is on the rise. The main protagonist, Ben Richards, is participating in a reality TV show called “The Running Man” where contestants win money by avoiding a team of hitmen sent to kill them. If this premise and movie sounds familiar, it’s because it was adapted into a 1987 movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Oddly enough, “Predator” was also a 1987 Schwarzenegger movie. A fun coincidence that we have a “Predator” sequel and a second adaptation of “The Running Man” in the same month… neither of which features Schwarzenegger. But yes, this new movie is not a remake of the 1987 film, but rather a second adaptation of the novel, one which is supposedly a lot more true to the source material. The highest opening for an Edgar Wright Film is “Baby Driver” with $20.6 million, which “The Running Man” is expected to get close to, although his 2021 movie “Last Night in Soho” only opened to $4.1 million, so there’s no guarantee.

The third and final wide release opening this weekend will be the latest horror movie from Osgood Perkins, Keeper. Perkins got his name on the map with the highly acclaimed serial killer horror film “Longlegs” in 2024. He had done a few smaller films prior to that, as well as the 2020 movie “Gretel & Hansel,” but “Longlegs” is what really got people’s attention. Not only did it have strong reviews, but it opened to $22.4 million and held well, finishing with $74.3 million. He quickly followed that up with “The Monkey,” a much different horror movie, but also a well liked one, that opened to $14.0 million in February of this year. It didn’t hold quite as well, but $39.7 million domestically is a solid outing for a low-budget horror film. And those who stayed for the whole credits of that movie got an early teaser trailer for “Keeper” at the end. So Perkins is coming fast and furious with his horror films. This one, while still in the same horror genre, also looks quite different. It’s more of a folk horror. A romantic anniversary trip to a secluded cabin turns not so happy when a dark presence reveals itself. The movie was actually shot in its entirety in 2023 while “The Monkey” was being held up due to the actors and writers strikes that year. Perkins found Canadian actors and writers to work on this film who were not part of those organizations in order to pull this off. Hence two movies in one year. Although current prognosis on this one is an opening in the single digit millions, so likely not as high of awareness as his previous two.

November 21 – 23

Universal's "Wicked: For Good"

The movie event of the year arrives in theaters on the weekend prior to Thanksgiving and that, of course, is Wicked: For Good. An adaptation of the extremely popular Broadway musical has been in the pipeline for quite some time. And that makes sense given that “Wicked” is the second highest grossing Broadway musical of all-time, behind only “The Lion King,” and is third in terms of number of performances, behind “The Phantom of the Opera” and “The Lion King.” When the movie adaptation finally went into production with director Jon M. Chu on board, Chu looked at the 2 hours 25 minute length of the Broadway musical and made the decision that there was no way they could do this justice in one film. I had a little bit of skepticism last year that audiences would realize this is a Part 1 and Part 2 sort of thing, since it certainly wasn’t advertised that way, but I certainly underestimated the “Wicked” crowd. They knew. And it didn’t bother them. In fact, an excellent decision as, for many “Wicked” fans, the movie adaptation was better than they dreamed it would be. That led to a box office performance that opened to $112.5 million on this exact weekend last year and was a dominate force throughout the entire holiday season – Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years. In fact, it’s theatrical run extended all the way until March, finishing with $473.2 million domestically and $755.2 million worldwide. It also was nominated for 10 Oscars, winning two of them – production design and costume design.

What happens when a very well liked movie that has positive reactions through the stratosphere has a Part 2 grand finale just 12 months later? Yep. Those tend to do very well. Current projections for its opening weekend alone are in the realm of $145-175 million for Box Office Pro’s long range forecast. And I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if it hits the higher end of that range. Audiences are going to show up. And they’re going to show up in droves. The one question I have is this… will it end up as the highest grossing movie of the year at the domestic box office? Worldwide box office is a no because “Ne Zha 2” earned over $2 billion earlier this year, most of that coming in China. It won’t get that high worldwide. But the current high on the year domestically is “A Minecraft Movie,” which made $423.9 million. The first “Wicked” beat that by $50 million and I have confidence that “Wicked: For Good” will outgross its predecessor. But the one movie in its way? December’s “Avatar: Fire and Ash.” Domestically in 2009, “Avatar” finished with $760.5 million. It had a few re-releases to bump it up to $785.2 million. The sequel in 2022, “Avatar: The Way of Water,” finished with $688.8 million domestically. Both movies finished well above $2 billion worldwide. So we don’t underestimate the power of an Avatar movie. There doesn’t seem to be as much hype for “Fire and Ash,” but people said the same for “The Way of Water,” and look what happened there. Regardless, this could be an interesting race between “Wicked: For Good” and “Fire and Ash” domestically. Whoever wins, it’s going to lead to a healthy conclusion to the 2025 box office, which is very needed.

While “Wicked: For Good” will definitely be the main course at the box office this weekend, there are two smaller movies that hope to pick up some of the scraps at the table. The first of those two is Rental Family, which might make for a nice feel good drama around Thanksgiving. A rental family service, which is a real thing in Japan that began in the 1990s, is a service that provides clients with actors who portray family members, friends, or coworkers for social events such as weddings, or to provide platonic companionship. In the movie, Brendan Fraser plays a lonely American actor living in Japan who starts working for a Japanese rental family service, which leads him to make actual connections along the way. The movie had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival and has built a decent amount of positive buzz since then, as it has a strong 96 percent on Rotten Tomatoes with 48 reviews counted. “Wicked: For Good” and “Rental Family” have a shot at combining for $180 million at the box office this weekend… with “Wicked: For Good” getting $175 million of that, which gives you the scope of what we’re looking at here.

The second smaller movie of the weekend adds a touch of action into the weekend’s meal with the release of SISU: Road to Revenge. As one of the many action films to feed off of the success of “John Wick,” “SISU” was a 2023 Finnish action film about an old man named Aatami Korpi towards the end of World War II who finds gold. In his attempt to bring it back to civilization, he runs into a Nazi platoon who thinks he’s just an old drifter and tries to rob him of his gold, but he takes down the entire platoon all on his own. Don’t mess with this dude. In its American box office release, the movie opened to $3.3 million from 1,006 theaters and finished its run with $7.3 million domestically and $11.1 million worldwide. Now in the sequel, Aatami Korpi, coined as “the man who refuses to die,” returns in 1946 to Soviet-occupied Karelia, where his family was murdered during World War II. His objective is to dismantle his old family house and rebuild it somewhere safe. But of course he runs into the Red Army, specifically the man who killed his family is determined to finish the job. So we have a natural progression in this franchise from fighting Nazis to fighting Soviets. The movie had its premiere at Fantastic Fest in September, and also released in its home country of Finland in October. So far it has received very strong reaction, currently matching the 94 percent Rotten Tomatoes score of the first with a 95 percent score of its own. Both “Rental Family” and “SISU: Road to Revenge” are projected to open in the $4-6 million range.

November 26 – 30

Disney's "Zootopia 2"

While “Wicked: For Good” will continue to dominate throughout the week of Thanksgiving, Disney will be throwing another behemoth into the mix with the release of Zootopia 2 on the Wednesday right before Thanksgiving, a situation that mirrors last Thanksgiving almost exactly. After earning $112.5 million the weekend before Thanksgiving, “Wicked” fell just 28 percent to earn $81.2 million in its second weekend, collecting a total of $263.2 million by the end of 10 days in release. Meanwhile, Disney released “Moana 2” during the week of Thanksgiving, which earned $139.8 million over the 3-day weekend and $225.4 million over the full 5-day weekend. The two movies went onto battle it out at the box office throughout the entire holiday season, a battle that was ultimately won by “Wicked” domestically, with “Moana 2” finishing with $460.4 million compared to the $473.2 million that “Wicked” earned. “Moana 2” was much bigger internationally, which helped it finish with over $1 billion worldwide. And now we get a Part 2 a year later with Universal and Disney battling it out again, a “Wicked” movie facing off against a big Disney sequel.

In regards to “Zootopia,” it currently remains the fifth highest grossing movie for Walt Disney Animation Studios at the domestic box office, with $341.3 million. That total is the third highest grossing non-sequel behind just “The Lion King” and “Frozen.” At the top of the list is two sequels, “Frozen 2” and “Moana 2.” It’s also one of four movies from the studio to cross $1 billion worldwide, and the only other non-sequel to do so outside “Frozen.” Despite many re-releases, 1994’s “The Lion King” has not quite hit that mark just yet, currently standing at $988.4 million worldwide. These numbers, of course, are not adjusted for ticket price inflation. Doing so there becomes really tricky with Disney due to how many times they put their classics back into theaters prior to VHS and DVD eventually becoming a thing. Point being, “Zootopia” is a force to be reckoned with as one of Disney’s best performing movies at the box office. So we’re well overdue for a return to the city. In doing so, Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde are sent on a mission that has them coming face-to-face with a mysterious viper named Gary De’Snake, whose arrival threatens to disrupt the balance of the metropolis. Current long range projections for “Zootopia” from Box Office Pro have it opening in the range of $100-120 million for the 3-day and coming close to $200 million over the 5-day. So not quite as big as “Moana 2” last year, but not too far behind, either.

Like with “Wicked: For Good” the previous weekend, this Thanksgiving weekend also comes with a few smaller movies hoping to earn a little bit of something. As many are swarming theaters seeing “Wicked: For Good” and “Zootopia 2,” some coming back to the theaters for the first time in a long time, or perhaps even the first time this year, they’ll at least see the posters of these other smaller movies and that might grab their attention or have it at least enter the back of their minds for later. Anyways, the most notable smaller film this time around is Eternity from A24. This stars Elizabeth Olsen, Miles Teller, and Callum Turner in a fantasy romantic comedy. The setting is the afterlife. Each person who dies gets assigned an afterlife coordinator and they have one week to decide where to spend eternity and who to spend it with. The conundrum here presented is that Joan, played by Elizabeth Olsen, has to now decide whether to spend her afterlife with Luke (Callum Turner), her first husband who died in war, or Larry (Miles Teller), her second husband who she spend the rest of her life with. The movie premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival this year and had decently positive reaction, currently holding an 84 percent on Rotten Tomatoes through 37 reviews.

Electing not to debut on Wednesday the 26th, but rather a traditional Friday opening on the 28th will be another former festival player, The Thing with Feathers. This movie had its premiere towards the beginning of the year at the Sundance Film Festival. Benedict Cumberbatch plays a grieving father who just lost his wife and now has to raise his two kids, when he’s visited by… the thing with feathers. A bird. That’s a thing that has feathers. This bird, though, is a giant crow monster that comes to both torment and soothe him as we spiral downwards into this psychological drama. The movie is being released by Briarcliff Entertainment, who just released “Stitch Head” on Halloween to just over $2 million. They also released “My Dead Friend Zoe” earlier this year in 780 theaters, earning $740,088 in its first weekend. The challenge this movie has is that it got mixed reviews at Sundance. Usually the festival crowds have a habit of overpraising many things as they get caught up the festival buzz, so a muted festival release doesn’t exactly bode well for reception amongst general audiences, but the presence of Benedict Cumberbatch might attract a few people to give it a shot.

A few limited release movies to look out for. The current predicted front runner to win best picture on Gold Derby is Chloe Zhao’s Hamnet. It’s a movie about William Shakespeare and his wife having to deal with the death of one of their children, and how that inspired the play “Hamlet.” It’s primarily told from the vantage point of his wife, played by Jessie Buckley, who seems to be the strong front runner to win best actress. The movie will debut in a few theaters this weekend and expand throughout December. Neon will also be giving an Oscar qualifying run to The Secret Agent, which is Brazil’s entry at the Oscars for best international film. It received very strong reaction at Cannes Film Festival back in May. It follows a former teacher caught up in the political turmoil of the final years of the Brazilian dictatorship. And finally, who knows what Netflix’s theatrical plan for Wake Up Dead Man is. This is the third movie in the “Knives Out” franchise. Daniel Craig returns as Benoit Blanc, with a new mystery to solve and another long list of actors joining the party this time around. Netflix released “Glass Onion” in about 600 theaters for about a week during Thanksgiving 2022. So perhaps that’s the plan here again, but Netflix doesn’t exactly announce their plans. It’ll be in at least some theaters on November 26 prior to its Netflix release on December 12.