Cara Delevingne as Laureline, doing a vulcan salute in Valerian and the City of a Thousand PlanetsImage via STXfilms
Cornering the comedy niche at this weekend’s domestic box office, Sony’s Anaconda delivered a top-five debut. It had intense competition, with Avatar: Fire and Ash continuing to exceed expectations in its second weekend, and The Housemaid successfully satisfying its target audience. Additionally, this week saw the wide expansion of Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme, which vastly exceeded expectations on the strength of a strong marketing push and Timothée Chalamet‘s acclaimed central performance. Anaconda also had to deal with a sudden spike for the holdover blockbuster Zootopia 2, which jumped to the number two spot in its fifth weekend of release. In the end, the meta-comedy secured the fifth spot on this weekend’s box office chart.
The movie, which follows two characters as they attempt to remake the 1997 Anaconda and encounter grave danger in the Amazon, made a little less than $25 million in its four-day debut, having earned mixed reviews. Starring Jack Black and Paul Rudd, who’ve both proven their box office pull in recent years with A Minecraft Movie and Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, Anaconda is sitting at a 50% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. The site’s consensus reads, “The premise might be ripe for a raucous action-comedy, but this meta reboot of Anaconda can’t detach its jaws wide enough to swallow so many conflicting tones.” In his review, Collider’s Aidan Kelley wrote that “Anaconda’s many pacing issues prevent it from being the cohesive love letter to a 1997 disasterpiece that it wants to be.”
‘Anaconda’ Features an Eclectic Cast
The new Anaconda cost a reported $45 million to produce, which means that it’s on the path to profitability. In one extended weekend, the movie grossed over half of what the forgotten 2017 sci-fi bomb Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets earned in its entire domestic run. Valerian cost more than $200 million to produce, and reportedly bankrupted director Luc Besson‘s production banner EuropaCorp with its $40 million domestic haul. It’s the kind of movie that the protagonists of Anaconda might want to remake. Directed by Tom Gormican, the movie also features Steve Zahn, Thandiwe Newton, Daniela Melchior, and the Brazilian star Selton Mello. You can watch Anaconda in theaters, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
Release Date
December 24, 2025
Runtime
99 minutes
Director
Tom Gormican
