Will 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple Take Down Avatar: Fire And Ash At The Weekend Box Office? It's Going To Be A Photo Finish

When weekend box office numbers come in on Sunday mornings, they are understood as estimates. After all, Sunday counts as part of the weekend, and while it's true that buying tickets in advance is a big practice among movie-goers in the modern age, there are also still folks who plan last minute ventures or prefer to make their purchases in person. This in mind, we're going to have to wait until tomorrow to know what film topped the domestic market over the last few days, because the results we currently have register as "too close to call."

James Cameron's Avatar: Fire And Ash has been sitting in the number one spot since it first arrived in theaters back in mid-December, but Nia DaCosta's 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple debuted this past Friday, and it is making a challenge for the crown. For now, they are in a virtual tie – though the Pandora-set blockbuster presently has the slight edge. You can check out the full Top 10 as it stands via early numbers below, and join me after for analysis.

Early Numbers Still Have Avatar: Fire And Ash At The Top Of The Domestic Box Office

We are now five weekends into Avatar: Fire And Ash's theatrical run, and things continue to go swimmingly for the blockbuster – and things will look even rosier if it remains ahead of 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple when the smoke clears. The movie's predecessor, 2022's Avatar: The Way Of Water, was able to keep collecting box office crowns until the first weekend of February 2023 (when it fell to M. Night Shyamalan's Knock At The Cabin and Kyle Marvin's 80 For Brady), and the seminal title in the series stayed on top until February 2010. As far as legacy goes, it certainly is in the film's interest to stay at number one domestically.

In the big picture, of course, it doesn't really matter, as that's just one detail among many to look at in the powerhouse performance of the 2025 feature. Early results from The Numbers say that it added another $13.3 million to its domestic total over the last three days, and it has made $363.5 million in the market to date. This means that it has now surpassed James Gunn's Superman in earnings (the DC Studios feature made $354.2 million during its run on the big screen), and the latest Cameron feature is now in the top four for the year – behind only Jared Hess' A Minecraft Movie ($424.1 million), Dean Fleischer-Camp's Lilo & Stitch ($423.8 million), Jared Bush and Byron Howard's Zootopia 2 ($390 million and rising).

Avatar: Fire And Ash is easily one of the biggest hits from the previous calendar year, though it's worth noting that it still lags far behind the domestic earnings of the previous two titles in the series. Respectively, Avatar and Avatar: The Way Of Water had earned $493.3 million and $564.6 million by the time they each reached their 31st day of release, and the third movie in the series is well behind their pace.

As I've noted in previous weeks in this box office column, however, the constant silver lining when it comes to these films is that the domestic earnings are mostly a bow on top of the theatrical journey: the big money comes from overseas. Only 25-30 percent of the worldwide ticket sales have come from the United States and Canada, and that pattern has continued. The title is still continuing its march towards trying to become just the eighth movie in history to make over $2 billion.

At present, Avatar: Fire And Ash's cumulative total stands at $1.318 billion, which is good enough to make it the 23rd biggest film of all time (obviously no accounting for inflation). It has now surpassed David Yates' Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 ( $1.312 billion) and it will soon move past Rian Johnson's Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi ($1.322 billion).

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple Doesn't Have A Box Office Weekend To Match Critical Acclaim

It should go without saying that battling for first place is not where 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple wants to be following its theatrical debut, but that's where things stand, as reported early numbers say that the movie is earning $13 million this weekend a.k.a. less than a half-million shy of what Avatar: Fire And Ash made in the last three days. It's the second biggest opening weekend for a title in the horror series, but it's a bit underwhelming.

You can see why it's underwhelming when you look at how the movie's performance compares to what Danny Boyle's 28 Years Later did last summer. Had the new sequel been able to match the $30 million earnings of the 2025 title, it would have easily defeated the James Cameron sci-fi epic over the last three days, but it wasn't able to generate that kind of excitement. Part of the blame can be put on the season (people don't go to the movies as much in January as they do in June), but it's still not the result that the filmmakers and studio were surely hoping for – particularly given that critics have offered the horror sequel near-universal praise (CinemaBlend's Nick Venable delivered a four-and-a-half star review of 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple)

There is positive news. Per Deadline, the reported production budget of the new movie was $63 million, meaning that it still has a path toward profitability at the global box office (its worldwide earnings presently stand at $29.2 million). Also, the franchise also got the green light for the planned third movie last week, so the vision pitched by Danny Boyle and Alex Garland will be completed and not cut short by these less-than-satisfactory results.

What will next week bring when Timur Bekmambetov's Mercy starring Chris Pratt arrives and challenges the titles in the Top 10? Be sure to head back here to CinemaBlend next weekend for my latest box office column to find out, and in the meantime, you can get a preview of what's heading to theaters in the coming weeks and months via our 2026 Movie Release Calendar.