Without totally demeaning its draw, Timur Bekmambetov's Mercy became the first 2026 title to top the box office last weekend... but it kind of just won by default. The $10.8 million it made wasn't exactly impressive, it's ascendency to the #1 spot domestically was mostly because of fading ticket sales for James Cameron's Avatar: Fire And Ash. Today, however, I can report on a true race for a new film to be declared "the number one movie in America," as Sam Raimi's Send Help has edged out surprise competition from Mark Fischbach's video game adaptation Iron Lung.
It's another notable win for the horror genre, which stacked up a number of them in 2025 and has fans hoping for matching success in the new year. You can check out the full domestic Top 10 in the chart below and join me after for analysis.
TITLE | WEEKEND GROSS | DOMESTIC GROSS | LW | THTRS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
1. Send Help* | $20,000,000 | $20,000,000 | N/A | 3,468 |
2. Iron Lung* | $18,000,000 | $18,000,000 | N/A | 3,150 |
3. Melania* | $7,041,612 | $7,041,612 | N/A | 2,930 |
4. Zootopia 2 | $5,800,000 | $408,957,359 | 3 | 3,007 |
5. Shelter* | $5,505,000 | $5,505,000 | N/A | 3,506 |
6. Avatar: Fire And Ash | $5,500,000 | $386,126,673 | 2 | 2,021 |
7. Mercy | $4,730,000 | $19,407,819 | 1 | 1,850 |
8. The Housemaid | $3,500,000 | $120,686,000 | 4 | 1,996 |
9. Marty Supreme | $2,913,763 | $90,879,867 | 5 | 1,703 |
10. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple | $1,600,000 | $23,651,000 | 6 | 2,145 |
Send Help Is The First 2026 Movie To Crack $20 Million In Its Domestic Opening Weekend
It took five weekends to get us to this point, but we finally have a new release in 2026 making over $20 million domestically.
Per early box office results reported by The Numbers, has hit that mark, and while it's not exactly a blockbuster start, it's solid. The film arrived in theaters after building a nice wave of buzz, with critics applauding its darkly comic and gross sensibilities along with the performances by stars Rachel McAdams and Dylan O'Brien (sentiments I also shared in my four star review for CinemaBlend), and that hype successfully piqued the curiosity of movie-goers.
Making the results from Send Help's opening weekend only sweeter is the acknowledgement that this was not an expensive film to make (the survival thriller has some big sequences and a fair amount of both special and visual effects, but it's mostly a small scale story centering on the dynamic between its two lead characters). Per Variety, the project was made with a $40 million budget, which means that it's well on its way to the proverbial black.
Expanding the focus to look at the movie's performance around the world, thus far it's not exactly doubling its domestic haul, but it has reportedly brought in $8.1 million so far from foreign markets, bringing its worldwide total so far up to $28.1 million.
The results look even better when you start making comparisons. For example, this time last year saw another original horror movie arrive during this exact box office weekend – namely Drew Hancock's Companion starring Sophie Thatcher and Jack Quaid – and while it too earned raves from most who saw it early, it only managed to make $9.3 million in its first three days of domestic release.
Send Help is also performing much better than the last time Sam Raimi directed a fresh genre feature: 2009's Drag Me To Hell. That film saw Raimi coming off the incredibly successful Spider-Man trilogy and had a prime summer release date, but it had to settle for fourth place in its opening weekend after making $15.8 million.
Will the movie be able to grow legs? That's a hard question to answer. Competition isn't too powerful next weekend thanks to the world's focus on the Super Bowl, and Valentine's Day has a trio of notable titles set to arrive in theaters. As always with new number one titles, I'll be keeping an eye on its weekend-to-weekend numbers as we get deeper into February.
Iron Lung Offers A Surprising Challenge For The #1 Spot
This time last week, I predicted that Send Help would become the new film at the top of the box office, and I became more and more confident that result was coming as Brett Ratner's Melania documentary was getting by critics and early tracking numbers came in... but what I most definitely didn't expect was that Iron Lung would be a serious challenger for this week's crown. The film is the feature debut for writer, director, and star Mark Fischbach, best known for his content creation on YouTube, and it's based on the submarine simulation game of the same name from 2022.
The movie is the debut launch for Markiplier Studios (named for Fischbach's online pseudonym), and while the movie was made for less than $3 million, per Deadline, it managed to gross a reported $18 million in its debut, showing in over 3,000 screens nationwide.
It's the biggest success we've seen in recent years outside of Damien Leone's Terrifier franchise, and the numbers are pretty similar: when it arrived in theaters in October 2024, Terrifier 3 managed to top the box office making $18.9 million. And thanks to the on-going Halloween season, audiences kept coming back, and it ultimately made $54 million domestically and $76.3 million worldwide.
Will Iron Lung be able to match that? To be perfectly honest, I have no idea, as I am still rather blindsided by its opening weekend success. My instinct is to predict that Send Help will have the stronger staying power thanks to its big names and the major studio behind it, but I can't tell if what we're seeing from the new video game adaptation is a flash in the pan success or the start of a phenomenon. We'll have a better idea of what's up this time next week.
Taking a look ahead at what's set to arrive on the big screen on Friday, it's certainly an eclectic mix of titles... and ones that may have a hard time being a distraction from the NFL championship game. The collection of titles includes Luc Besson's Dracula, Renny Harlin's trilogy-capper The Strangers: Chapter 3, and the wide expansion of Aidan Zamiri's Charli XCX faux documentary The Moment. Head back here to CinemaBlend next Sunday to find out if any of them have what it takes to unseat Send Help, and for a full look at what's coming to the big screen this year, check out our 2026 Movie Release Calendar.
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