Box Office prefers Pandora to Greenland as audiences go moderately bananas for Primate

Avatar: Fire And Ash enjoyed a fourth weekend atop the box office, bringing its worldwide total to $1.2 billion.

By Matt Schimkowitz  |  January 12, 2026 | 6:23pm
Courtesy of 20th Century Studios
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Box Office prefers Pandora to Greenland as audiences go moderately bananas for Primate

The Sully family isn’t just a fortress. It’s a box office juggernaut. Per The Numbers, Avatar: Fire And Ash handily stayed atop the box office for a fourth weekend, beating out new releases Primate and Greenland 2: Migration. Since opening on December 19, Fire And Ash, the third entry in James Cameron’s sci-fi series, has seen minor drops in attendance. This weekend, it brought in $21 million, a 49% drop from last week. This weekend was also the first weekend it showed on fewer screens, losing about 100 screens in the past week.

Nevertheless, the promise to find out what’s wrong with Ben was enough of a hook for some viewers. Primate, the chimpanzee slasher that The A.V. Club calls “simply yet satisfying,” made a respectable $11 million on 2,900 screens. Behind Primate, The Housemaid and Zootopia 2 clung on to the top five, with Housemaid earning roughly $800,000 more than Zootopia. With a sequel already on the way, Housemaid is closing in on $100 million. Meanwhile, in seven weeks, Zootopia has made more than $378 million in the U.S. and $1.6 billion around the world.

Though audiences seem ready to return to Pandora week after week, all the talk of the U.S. invading Greenland did not help Greenland 2: Migration. The poorly reviewed sequel to the 2020 Gerard Butler disaster flick brought in $8.4 million in its first week. The first Greenland went directly to VOD after theaters closed due to COVID. Maybe that’s where Greenland‘s audience expects it, because this is low for a Butler in January. Over the last decade, the actor has ascended to the top of the January dumping ground with titles like Den Of Thieves and Plane. Greenland 2 is his softest New Year opening since earning the title of Mr. January in 2018. Apparently, moviegoers do not want to be reminded of their doomscrolls while watching Butler save his family.

Here’s the full top 10:

  1. 1) Avatar: Fire And Ash ($21.3 million)
  2. 2) Primate ($11.1 million)
  3. 3) The Housemaid($10.9 million)
  4. 4) Zootopia 2 ($10.1 million)
  5. 5) Greenland 2: Migration ($8.4 million)
  6. 6) Marty Supreme ($7.6 million)
  7. 7) Anaconda ($5 million)
  8. 8) The SpongeBob Movie: Search For Squarepants ($3.8 million)
  9. 9) Song Sung Blue ($3 million)
  10. 10) David ($2.9 million)

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