REGINA – It is a new year in 2026, and that means Cairns on Cinema is here again with our annual look at the box office winners for 2025.
Usually, this is where we run down the final totals and crown the box office champion for the past year. But as has happened quite often in the past, the race has gone into overtime.
The reason is that Avatar: Fire and Ice, released on Dec. 19 is still in the cinemas and still making big money, and is expected to continue to do so well into 2026. What really helps its cause is that January and February are usually pretty dead months for new releases, which leaves room for existing releases to clean up.
This seems to be the way it is for director James Cameron and his blockbuster movies. His previous record-setting efforts like Avatar and Titanic would open up at the end of the year and then keep on steamrolling into the next one, keeping the box office race going well into the next year. Indeed, this is the case this time for Avatar: Fire and Ice, but the question now is whether it can hit the marks that it needs to be the box office champion of 2025 releases.
At the international box office, it is still uncertain if Avatar: Fire and Ice can beat out the Chinese animated release Ne Zha 2. As they stand, according to Box Office Mojo the total worldwide gross has Ne Zha 2 at $2.15 billion, followed by Zootopia 2 (Disney) at 1.46 billion, Lilo & Stitch (Disney) at 1.038 billion and A Minecraft Movie at $958 million (WB) . Avatar: Fire and Ice (20th Century Studios) is currently at $851 million and that is after only a couple of weeks in wide release. What I am seeing right now are projections that Avatar: Fire and Ice will finish no worse than second overall worldwide and still has a shot of hitting the $2 billion mark. Whether it can catch Ne Zha 2, which is really more of a Chinese phenomenon, remains to be seen. Keep in mind that so far Fire and Ice has fallen short of the pace of its predecessor Avatar: The Way of Water, which made $2.3 billion.
At the domestic box office for North America the standings are as follows: a dead heat for first place between A Minecraft Movie at $423.9 million and Lilo & Stitch at $423.7 million, folllowed by Superman (WB) at $354.1 million, Jurassic World: Rebirth at $339.6 million and Zootopia 2 at $337.9 million. Avatar: Fire and Ice is back in tenth place having crossed the $250 million mark, but once again, this is after only two weeks of wide release. I am personally expecting this flick to keep on making money and eventually beat out A Minecraft Movie to finish first for 2025 releases in the overall domestic box office, but that is still weeks way. For the moment, we remain in overtime.
In fact, we are in “overtime” on a lot of the big entertainment stories of 2025, including the big Warner Bros. Discovery takeover battle that has dominated the news. The latest news is that the WB has spurned Paramount Skydance latest hostile bid offer and are still recommending to shareholders that they approve the purchase by Netflix, but that isn’t finalized yet. As well, there is some new controversy as reports have gone out suggesting Netflix is planning a short 17-day theatrical window for WB releases once it takes over, a prospect that ought to have all the cinemas up in arms.
In any event, this whole drama over the future of the WB has both overshadowed and encapsulated all of what went on in 2025 in the movie business. It was a year that saw theatrical grosses remain basically flat, with Comscore reporting a domestic gross of $8.87 billion or about a 1.5 per cent increase.
For the studios, it was again a winning year for Disney, who raked in over $6.5 billion alone in 2025 to top the box office. Their big wins included Lilo & Stitch and Zootopia 2, and it was their 20th Century Studios who released Avatar: Fire and Ice.
But it was not all good news: Disney also served up Snow White, a live action remake which only made back about $205 million worldwide from its reported blockbuster budget. It is widely regarded as the most notorious and costliest bomb of the year. They also served up Tron: Ares, another instalment of that franchise but one that went right down the tubes at the cinemas. Yes, even if you’re Disney, you can’t win ‘em all.
That’s all for 2025, and we shall see you at the movies in 2026!
