The North American box office experienced an unusually muted weekend as extreme winter weather swept across large parts of the United States, forcing widespread cinema closures and sharply limiting audience turnout. Against this challenging backdrop, Mercy, a new sci-fi thriller led by Chris Pratt, debuted at No. 1 with $11.2 million, bringing an end to the prolonged dominance of Avatar: Fire and Ash, which had ruled the domestic charts for five consecutive weekends.
While “Mercy” topping the chart with a relatively modest figure would normally raise eyebrows, the result takes on a different tone given the extraordinary circumstances. Severe winter storms impacted as many as 37 states, stretching from Texas to Maine, with warnings of blizzards, freezing temperatures, and high winds disrupting daily life. Many theaters were closed entirely, while others operated with reduced showtimes. As a result, the overall domestic box office gross for the weekend landed at roughly $60 million, making it the lowest collective weekend of the year so far, and marking a near 9% decline compared to the same period in 2025.
Distributed by Amazon MGM Studios, “Mercy” opened slightly below early expectations of around $12 million, as projections were revised downward once the scale of the storm became clear. The film played on 3,468 screens, delivering a respectable per-theater average given the conditions. However, its international rollout was far less encouraging. The film collected $11.6 million from 80 overseas markets, bringing its worldwide opening total to $22.8 million — a soft start for a studio-backed genre title that will now rely heavily on word-of-mouth and post-storm recovery to find traction.
After spending most of January at the top, “Avatar: Fire and Ash” slipped to second place with $7 million in its sixth weekend. The James Cameron epic has now accumulated $378.4 million domestically and an imposing $1.378 billion globally. While those numbers would represent a career-defining result for most films, they still fall short of the historic benchmarks set by Cameron’s earlier installments. Both 2009’s “Avatar” and 2022’s “The Way of Water” held the No. 1 spot for seven consecutive weekends and went on to finish with $2.9 billion and $2.3 billion worldwide, respectively. “Fire and Ash” remains a massive success by any contemporary standard, but its theatrical trajectory underscores just how singular its predecessors were.
Holding steady in third place, Zootopia 2 continued its marathon run with $5.7 million in its remarkable ninth weekend of release. The animated sequel has now crossed $401 million in North America and $1.744 billion globally, cementing its status as the highest-grossing animated Hollywood film of all time, surpassing even “Inside Out 2.” Since debuting over Thanksgiving, the film has displayed exceptional legs, benefiting from family appeal, repeat viewings, and minimal direct competition in the animated space.
Further down the chart, The Housemaid added $4.2 million in its sixth weekend, pushing its domestic total to $115.4 million, while Sony’s 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple dropped sharply, earning $3.6 million in its second weekend following a steep decline that suggests front-loaded interest rather than sustained momentum.
One of the more underwhelming debuts came from Return to Silent Hill, which opened at No. 7 with $3.2 million from 1,850 theaters. The performance lags far behind earlier entries in the franchise. The original 2006 “Silent Hill” opened to $20 million, while 2012’s “Silent Hill: Revelation” debuted with $8 million. Released by Iconic Events — a distributor better known for niche genre titles — the third installment has also struggled critically, currently holding a 15% score on Rotten Tomatoes, limiting its prospects for growth beyond core fans.
In contrast, awards-season contenders benefitted from renewed attention following Oscar nominations announced earlier in the week. Marty Supreme, directed by Josh Safdie and starring Timothée Chalamet, posted $3.55 million from 2,021 theaters, declining just 32% from the previous weekend — the smallest drop among top performers. With nine Academy Award nominations, the film has now earned $86.3 million domestically and over $105 million worldwide, reinforcing its status as one of A24’s most successful theatrical releases to date.
Another beneficiary of awards buzz was Hamnet, directed by Chloé Zhao. Expanding nationwide after a limited run, the Shakespeare-inspired drama earned $2 million from 1,996 locations, lifting its domestic total to $17.6 million and global earnings to approximately $42 million. With 13 Oscar nominations, the film is well positioned for continued modest gains in the coming weeks.
Summing up the weekend, the box office narrative was shaped less by competition and more by circumstance. Weather, rather than audience preference, dictated turnout, freezing overall revenue despite several high-profile titles in circulation. As Comscore’s Paul Dergarabedian noted, films currently in the “sweet spot” of their theatrical runs stand to benefit the most from awards-season visibility once conditions normalize. With storms expected to ease and February releases on the horizon, the coming weeks should provide a clearer picture of true audience demand — one less influenced by forces outside the multiplex.
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