The domestic box office continues to fight back after Covid and the Hollywood strikes, and for the third time since the pandemic has eclipsed the $8 billion mark at the domestic box office, according to Comscore on Sunday morning.

You can thank the over-performance of Universal/Blumhouse’s Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 which was expected to top out at a $40M opening, but notched $63M, the best opening and No. 1 haul ever in the historically slow post-Thanksgiving period, among other records.

Year-on-year, the current domestic B.O. is 1% ahead of 2024 at the same point in time for the January 1-December 7 span. Last year ended at $8.57 billion, but we have a swing factor this year as to whether we get to $9 billion — that’s 20th Century Studios’ James Cameron-directed threequel Avatar: Fire and Ash, which is eyeing a $110M opening beginning December 19. Note, when it comes to an Avatar opening, even if it falls short of its start, they’re always about the long play over the holiday, the title being 3 hours and 15 minutes long (as opposed to 2022’s Avatar: Way of Water‘s 3 hours and 12 minutes).

Moviegoers seek the best seats in any multiplex when it comes to an Avatar movie, even if it’s not on opening weekend. Way of Water grossed $401M at the domestic box office in the final 16 days of 2022 for a final take of $684M in its first cycle (its lifetime cume is at $688M after this past fall’s rerelease). The post-Covid box office time frame commenced in 2021 after a majority of the nation’s theaters were closed, from March 2020-March 2021.

Also, in the mix to bolster the year-end holiday frame is Lionsgate’s The Housemaid starring Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried, Paramount’s Spongebob Movie: The Search for SquarePants, Angel Studios’ David and A24’s Marty Supreme on December 19, followed by Sony’s adventure comedy Anaconda and Focus Features’ Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson musical dramedy Song Sung Blue on Christmas Day.

Comscore’s Head of Marketplace Trends Paul Dergarabedian told Deadline, “With less than a month to go in the box office year, the $8B domestic YTD threshold has finally been reached through Sunday as movie theaters are presenting an eclectic selection of films from major and independent distributors thus creating a cinematic traffic jam of sorts that’s developing over the next few weeks.”

He added, “However, it’s shaping up to be a December to remember with literally something for everyone landing on big screens this month. Could the $9B domestic annual revenue threshold be reached? Only once has this happened since 2020 and that was in 2023, the year of Barbenheimer, so it will be a challenge to hit that mark this year.”