Avatar: Fire and Ash‘s seemingly indomitable reign at the domestic box office has finally come to an end. But the weekend’s numbers show that it isn’t because of this new contender’s strength, but rather Fire and Ash’s weakness.

Chris Pratt and Rebecca Ferguson’s dystopic thriller Mercy finally became the title to topple James Cameron’s fantasy threequel from the No. 1 spot, after several stepped up and tried over the past six weeks. Mercy scored the No. 1 spot on the domestic charts this weekend with a $11.2 million opening figure, easily outpacing Fire and Ash’s $7 million week-six take, per Comscore.

Avatar still held on to No. 1 globally, however, with a $35 million take, while Mercy came in at No. 4 with $22.8 million.

After nearly two months of gangbusters business at the box office, driven by the premieres of some of 2025’s highest-earning films, from Wicked: For Good to Zootopia 2 to Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, this weekend’s cumulative top 10 domestic gross of just over $44 million represents a marked slump. Compare that figure to the weekend beginning with Fire and Ash’s Dec. 19 premiere, in which the top 10 cumulative exceeded $175 million.

Still from ‘Zootopia 2’.

DISNEY

Mercy’s $11.2 domestic premiere, meanwhile, doesn’t instill confidence that the film will recoup its estimated $60 million budget by the end of its theatrical run. In other words, Fire and Ash lost its foothold atop the box office not because a powerful opponent challenged the film and won, but because it had so weakened after six weeks in release that a meager $7 million take would have been enough for almost any new release to vault over.

That isn’t to say Fire and Ash’s box office performance has been weak overall. The film has grossed $378.4 million domestically and nearly $1.4 billion abroad so far, placing it within the upper echelons of the highest-grossing films released last year. But as discussed in last week’s box office report, Fire and Ash is significantly underperforming compared with its predecessors, 2009’s Avatar and 2022’s Avatar: The Way of Water.

The rest of the weekend’s box office leaderboards are mixed bags, comprised of new arthouse titles, blockbuster holdovers from 2025, re-releases, and more.

In the No. 3 spot domestically is Zootopia 2, which earned $5.7 million in its ninth week of release for a domestic total so far of $401.4 million. Globally, the film earned another $25.7 million, adding up to a staggering $1.7 billion abroad.

Oscar hopefuls Marty Supreme and Hamnet have shown remarkable box office staying power in their sixth and ninth weeks of release, respectively. The ping-pong drama from Josh Safdie grossed $3.5 million this weekend for an impressive domestic total of $85.2 over its estimated $70 million budget. The Shakespearean romance from past Oscar winner Chloe Zhao, meanwhile, earned another $2 million, bringing its total to $17.6 million on an estimated $30–35 million budget.

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Due to Mercy’s lackluster debut, next week’s slate of releases is poised to generate a new box office champ.

The prime contender is Sam Raimi’s highly anticipated return to the horror genre with Send Help. The Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brien-starring thriller about a couple of sparring coworkers stranded on a remote island has the power to become 2026’s first big horror hit. But it’ll have to go through the Jason Statham actioner Shelter and the post-apocalyptic Mark Fischbach chiller Iron Lung first.