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.
