In today’s Box Office Breakdown, we analyze seven new releases:
Lionsgate’s I Can Only Imagine 2
A24’s How to Make a Killing
Neon’s EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert
20th Century’s Psycho Killer
Well Go USA’s Blades of the Guardians
Focus Features’ Midwinter Break
IFC Entertainment’s This Is Not a Test
Plus, a full breakdown of the top ten at the box office this weekend.
If you’ve been forwarded this email, click here to sign up: https://theindustry.co/subscribe
Sony’s GOAT took #1 at the box office with $17M domestic. This brings its domestic total to $58.3M. Its worldwide total is $102.3M.
Sony is on its way to creating another original animated hit series. Even though it opened lower than Sony’s top three animations that launched series (Spider-Man not included), its week 2 drop held steady:
Hotel Transylvania (2012)
$42.5M opening
36.4% week 2 drop ($27M)
$148.3M domestic total
$377.1M worldwide
The Smurfs (2011)
$35.6M opening
41.9% week 2 drop ($20.7M)
$142.6M domestic total
$563.7M worldwide
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009)
$30.3M opening
17.4% week 2 drop ($25M)
$124.9M domestic total
$236.8M worldwide
GOAT (2025)
$27.2M opening
38% week 2 drop ($17M)
Even though GOAT may not reach the mega totals of the above, it’s looking like it’ll recoup its $90M budget.
The film had a pretty good per/screen average of $4.4K across 3863 theaters.
Here is the trailer.
Here’s the breakdown of the rest of the top 10:
$14.2M - “Wuthering Heights” (Warner Bros.)
$60M domestic total
$151.7M worldwide
$80M (Warner Bros. Acquired for this amount) + $85M Marketing budget
RT: 59%
Week 2
At a 57% drop this ranks on the higher end for Warner Bros. second weekend drops for its top films of the past year:
Sinners
6% week 2 drop
Weapons
43% week 2 drop
One Battle After Another
49% week 2 drop
Minecraft Movie
50% week 2 drop
Superman
54% week 2 drop
Final Destination: Bloodlines
62% week 2 drop
The Conjuring: Last Rites
69.5% week 2 drop
However this film is still doing great business and ranks as the fourth-highest grossing erotic drama of all time behind the Fifty Shades of Grey series and Indecent Proposal:
Fifty Shades of Grey (2015)
$85.2M opening
$166.2M domestic total
$570.8M worldwide
Indecent Proposal (1993)
$18.3M opening
$106.6M domestic total
$266.6M worldwide
With a $165M budget all in we’re still a ways from this hitting break even point at the box office.
$8M - I Can Only Imagine 2 (Lionsgate)
$18M budget
RT: 62%
Week 1
This opened 53% lower than the first film, which was a hit:
I Can Only Imagine (2018)
$17.1M opening
$83.5M domestic total
$86.1M worldwide
Lionsgate typically does decently with these faith-based films where they partner with Kingdom Story Company (Jesus Revolution took $53.4M worldwide).
Faith based sequels tend to have big drops:
God’s Not Dead (2014)
$64.7M worldwide
God’s Not Dead 2 (2016)
$24.5M worldwide
Luckily for Lionsgate the budget here is fairly small so even if it drops big next week it shouldn’t be a huge loss.
$5.8M - Crime 101 (Amazon MGM)
$24.7M domestic total
$46.3M worldwide
$90M budget
RT: 88%
Week 2
This took a big week 2 drop of 59%. And now it’s clearer to see that this is a bad result for Amazon. Typically, they’ll try to recoup their production costs theatrically and then drive engagement to Prime as the movie plays there.
But this won’t come close to reaching $90M by the time it finishes its theatrical run.
So what happened? The movie stars Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Halle Berry, Barry Keoghan, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Nick Nolte.
Crime 101 was marketed as a fairly generic crime drama and although the execution was tip top, the premise wasn’t compelling enough to drive the kind of big box office numbers that the cast deserved.
$4.5M - Send Help (20th Century)
$55.5M domestic total
$83M worldwide
$40M budget
RT: 94%
Week 4
Send Help’s 2% week 3 drop was legendary. And now at week 4 it drops 49%.
And by next week this will be director Sam Raimi’s top earning original film. Of course, his other films based on IP (Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, Oz the Great and Powerful) have pulled in massive earnings.
His current top earning original film is:
Drag Me to Hell (2009)
$90.8M worldwide
Send Help was boosted by the unusual but genius decision to cast rom-com regular Rachel McAdams in a horror.
$3.56M - How to Make a Killing (A24)
$15M budget
RT: 47%
Week 1
This is a disappointing result for A24 and Glen Powell, especially after his previous film, failed to do well:
The Running Man (2025)
$16.5M opening
$69.4M worldwide
$110M budget
We can see that at 1625 screens, A24 didn’t give this a full wide release. But it also didn’t slow drip it onto a handful of theaters, much like they do for their prestige films like The Brutalist or Marty Supreme.
We’ll have to see how this does internationally before we can tell if it’ll recoup.
$3.25M - EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert (Neon - domestic, Universal - international)
$5.3M worldwide ($2M international)
$10M budget
RT: 96%
Week 1
This is a massive win for Neon as the film opened on only 325 screens. That gives us a per screen average of an astounding $10K/screen.
It had a larger opening than other top music docs of the past 15 years:
Becoming Led Zeppelin (2025)
$2.7M opening
$10.4M domestic total
$14.7M worldwide
Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) (2021)
$800K opening
$2.3M domestic total
$3.7M worldwide
Amazing Grace (2018)
$47K opening
$4.5M domestic total
$7.8M worldwide
Amy (2015)
$222K opening
$8.4M domestic total
$23.7M worldwide
Marley (2012)
$262K opening
$1.4M domestic total
$3.8M worldwide
With Baz Luhrmann at the helm, who drove Elvis (2022) to $288.7M worldwide, we’re excited to see where this companion doc will go.
$2.6M - Solo Mio (Angel Studios)
$21.8M domestic total
$4M budget
RT: 81%
Week 3
This is another non-faith-based, feel-good release from Angel Studios. This one is a rom-com starring Kevin James.
Solo Mio outperformed all of Angel Studios’ recent releases in the non-faith-based category:
The Last Rodeo (2025)
$5.4M opening
$15.2M worldwide total (all domestic)
I Was a Stranger (2024)
$1.2M opening
$2M worldwide total (all domestic)
Homestead (2024)
$6M opening
$20.8M worldwide total (all domestic)
Sketch (2024)
$2.4M opening
$10.2M worldwide total (all domestic)
Kevin James used to throw up massive box office numbers with Grown Ups 1 ($40.5M opening, $271.5M WW) and 2 ($41.5M opening, $247M WW) and Paul Blart: Mall Cop 1 ($31.8M opening, $183M WW) and 2 ($23.7M opening, $107.6M WW).
But James hasn’t had a domestic release since Becky (2020), which opened during COVID to $209K and made $1.1M WW. Before that, the last non-animated film he starred in was Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2.
So this is a big win for James and Angel Studios.
$2.3M - Zootopia 2 (Disney)
$423.9M domestic total
$1.848bn worldwide
$250M+ production budget
RT: 91%
Week 13
This is the highest-grossing Hollywood animated film of all time, surpassing:
Inside Out 2 (Disney)
$1.699bn worldwide total
However, this is still well behind the highest-grossing animated film ever made:
Ne Zha 2
$2.2bn worldwide total
Zootopia 2 dipped 40% in its 13th week.
Disney and Pixar have consistently proved they can put out animated sequels that outperform the first film by wide margins:
Inside Out 2 (2024)
$154.2M opening
vs. $90.4M Inside Out 1
$653M domestic total
vs. $356.5M Inside Out 1
$1.699bn worldwide
vs. $859.1M Inside Out 1
Moana 2 (2024)
$139.8M opening
vs. $56.6M Moana 1
$460.4M domestic total
vs. $248.8M Moana 1
$1.059bn worldwide
vs. $643.3M Moana 1
Frozen 2 (2019)
$130.3M opening
vs. $93.6M Frozen 1
$477.4M domestic total
vs. $400M Frozen 1
$1.454bn worldwide
vs. $1.28bn Frozen 1
Interestingly, all three of the above films have domestic box office totals well above Zootopia 2. But international for the film has been incredibly strong.
$1.8M - Avatar: Fire and Ash (20th Century)
$399.4M domestic
$1.473bn worldwide
$400M+ production budget
RT: 66%
Week 10
Domestically, Fire and Ash is trailing behind both of the previous Avatar films’ 10th week totals by a big margin:
Avatar (2009)
$687.9M - 10 week domestic total (vs. 3’s $399.4M)
Avatar 3 is down 41.9%
Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)
$657.5M - 10 week domestic total (vs. 3’s $399.4M)
Avatar 3 is down 39.3%
Right now, Avatar 3 is far behind the mammoth totals of the first two films:
Avatar (2009)
$749.8M domestic total
$1.994bn international total
$2.74bn worldwide total
Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)
$684M domestic total
$1.64bn international total
$2.32bn worldwide total
This is a disappointing result and could result in the cancellation of the next Avatar film.
Here are the lowest-grossing films of the week:
$29K - Arco (Neon)
$980K domestic total
$1.16M worldwide
Premiere: Cannes (Special Screening)
Oscar-nominated for Best Animated Film
$1.2K /screen average
Week 15
$20K - Sentimental Value (Neon)
$5M domestic total
$13.6M worldwide
Premiere: Cannes (winner: Grand Prix - 2nd place)
$112 /screen average
Week 16
$14.2K - A Poet (1-2 Special)
Premiere: Cannes Un Certain Regard (Jury Prize)
$184.8K domestic total
$188.8K worldwide
$746/screen average
Week 4
IFC Entertainment’s This Is Not a Test earned $150K in its opening weekend. This has a low per-screen average of $333/screen across 450 theaters.
Focus Features’ Midwinter Break earned $530K in its opening weekend. This has a low per-screen average of $656/screen across 808 theaters. The film stars Lesley Manville & Ciarán Hinds.
Well Go USA’s Blades of the Guardians earned $760K in its opening weekend. This has a strong per-screen average of $4.1K/screen across 184 theaters. This is a Chinese martial arts film from director Yuen Woo-ping (stunts: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon).
20th Century’s Psycho Killer earned $1.6M in its opening weekend. With a respectable per-screen average of $1.46K/screen across 1100 theaters. This film is produced by Roy Lee (Weapons) and co-stars Malcolm McDowell.




Quite some read 👍