Second weekend of January 2026

Because we had a slate of films at Christmas that movie goers found satisfying, and we have a little more new gross this year than last year (Den of Thieves 2, The Last Showgirl), we’ll probably have a nice 15% uptick from last year. The rest of January looks about the same as this week, we should have a little more gross than last year but for the most part it’s going to be driven by the holdovers from Christmas.

Now that we’re back to work from the holidays, I guess it’s time to grab some popcorn, sit back and watch the daily soap opera of the WBD sale. My favorite news drop of the last week or so was the ’Netflix will only keep movies in theaters for 17 days’ angle and (although you can guess where that came from) it makes no sense. Because we’ve been able to experiment with windows over the last 5 years, we have a ton of data that says that letting a film play out at the higher price per pair of eyeballs in theatrical; and they play out at the next tier and the next tier before it gets to streaming, actually increases it’s value once it gets on the streaming platform. And the time between the theatrical release and the platform drop doesn’t make much difference, it’s more about presence on the home page algorithm once the platform drop happens. And if Netflix wants to start putting everything on a short window, great, it’s their money (that they just wasted) they spent for the purchase and we already know what the result is, because it happened 4 years ago when…..WB did it. And if Netflix gets this deal, about $1 billion of the debt they’re buying comes from the massive cost of that Day and Date failure (mostly from the backend buyouts); as my Dad used to say ‘Irony is Undefeated’.

But there’s a narrative that keeps popping up about cornering the market, no matter if it’s Netflix and trying to kill theaters or Skydance elimination of a competitor, the one aspect you have to consider is that the idea of cornering the market is pretty tough to do; the market will go where it wants to go.

From the time that the Duke’s tried to corner the Frozen Concentrated Orange Juice market, which created an Island home for Winthorpe, Billy Ray and Ophelia (Fictional); to the time where Hillary Clinton tried to corner the market on campaign money in 2014 for the 2016 election that created Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump (true but sounds fictional); to when IBM bought up competitors in the early Desktop PC Market and followed it up with a campaign saying ‘nobody ever got fired by buying IBM’, which enabled the creation of Dell and Apple (actually happened); you can try to corner the market, but the market will speak.

Let’s say that whoever buys WBD just folds it into whatever they are doing now, the market is still there and it’s possible that would create more shelf space in theaters for someone else; so one company’s trash is another’s treasure. Since we just had a Christmas season where all 7 wide films look profitable (because of the investment their companies made in theatrical), those investments are going to pay off handsomely on Disney/Hulu, Paramount +, and even Netflix for years and years to come, money will find its way to the theatrical sector if an opportunity is created by one of these mergers. And let’s look at the other side of this, how many of you have been out there pitching a movie to a streamer and the response has been ‘we’re really not looking for those right now’. The market speaks, and because movies straight to streaming don’t have the numbers to earn their keep, it’s a pass. So as much as we keep hearing about job losses and less buyers for projects, the reason this sector still exists is that it earns it’s keep, and as long as it can keep doing that, the money to make that happen will keep showing up. But the smart play with either of these deals would be to keep the money where it is, and not let someone else come in should they exit.

Anyway, with the same expected accuracy as the rumor that we’re trying to invade Greenland because the President saw a commercial for Greenland 2 over the holidays, here are some thoughts on the weekend box-office.

Primate - The early January is a traditional place for a Horror film like this and although this doesn’t look like one of the breakouts we’ve seen this time of year, it’s good for what it is. Especially with a juggernaut like The Housemaid vying for the same audience. The exits are just okay so far, but unless it’s unusually good today, the weekend should come in around 11.

Greenland 2: Migration - The first Greenland was a victim of Covid and didn’t go theatrical, so it’s probably a testament to Gerald Butler’s theatrical IP that this is as good as it is today. This looks very similar to Primate today, but Primate will be better tonight because of the Horror crowd and this should be better tomorrow night because it’s an older adult skew. But right now it looks like about 11.

Is This Thing On? - Searchlight threw a lot of support behind this movie, but it just doesn’t seem to want to work. The release pattern here is a little bit of a head scratcher (the exits are pretty soft for a film that got platformed), and the grosses today are nothing special. They expanded to 1500 runs, and it looks like a weekend of about $1.5 million.

I Was a Stranger - Another film from Angel, but even the Angel strongholds like Salt Lake City aren’t good here. Went 1400 theaters and it looks to be a little over $1 million.

No Other Choice - Expanded to 147 runs and it looks like there’s something happening here, the numbers are pretty good on an overall basis for this genre, the total gross is probably a little less than I Was a Stranger with 10% of the runs. For a break this wide on this type of film, the $5k to $6k psa is really good.

Dead Man’s Wire - Went 14 runs in 10 markets and NY is okay, but the rest are pretty soft. Looks like a psa of $5k or $6k.

For the holdovers, everything is going to be way down today because last Friday was a holiday, but this is kind of a ‘make it or break it’ weekend for all the Christmas films; because this is when they dig in if they’re going to be around for a while. But we probably won’t really see which ones have staying power till tomorrow when it’s closer to an apples to apples comparison.

Avatar: Fire and Ash - Looks down 45% or so for a weekend in the low 20’s.

The Housemaid - This has been on a roll and it got off to a great start this morning, but it’s been giving it back little by little. Looks considerably better than the other films this weekend today, and looks headed for a weekend of about 10 or so. But because this has dug in so nicely, it’s going to fly by $100 million around this time next week.

Marty Supreme - The drop from last week looks a lot like the weekend for weekend drop on A Complete Unknown, so figure it’s down the same 35% drop for a weekend around $8 million. That will move it to #2 on the all time A24 gross list ahead of Civil War.

Song Sung Blue - This film has really strange gross rhythms. It’s up, it’s down, it’s kind of all over the place. It looked way down today, but when everything else was getting worse, this got better. Tomorrow is really important for this film and if it’s going to hang in there it’s got to show staying power with its older core audience. For now, let’s say around $4 million.