As has become common in the last 13 years, it took a superhero movie to save the domestic box office from its financial doldrums. However, this time around, it wasn't a Marvel or DC Comics fixture that rejuvenated life to the box office. Instead, Dog Man, an adaptation of Dav Pilkey's beloved graphic novels from the mid-2010s, gave the marketplace a much-need jolt of energy. Over its three-day bow, Dog Man grossed $36 million, the eighth-best domestic January opening weekend in history (exempting titles like American Sniper and The Revenant that had December limited release runs). Astonishingly, that bow beat out pre-COVID DreamWorks Animation launches like Mr. Peabody & Sherman and Puss in Boots. On top of all that, Dog Man more than doubled the lifetime domestic cume of the last Peter Hastings directorial effort, The Country Bears ($16.98 million) over just three days. All this from a movie that cost only $40 million to make!
Hollywood’s obsession with mining nostalgia aimed at 40+-year-olds has led to a dearth of big screen adaptations of characters today’s kids enjoy. Much like Five Night’s at Freddy’s from 2023, Dog Man was a signal that Gen-Alpha moviegoers and their pop culture fixations can also fuel massive big screen hits. In this case, DreamWorks Animation stuck while the Dog Man iron was hot compared to the studios 2017 feature Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie, which launched 20 years after the first Captain Underpants book hit stands. Dog Man fever is still fresh and people clearly wanted to see this character on the big screen.
It didn’t hurt, of course, that the marketplace has been severely lacking in new family movies since Christmas. Dog Man filled that void nicely. Given that next weekend’s Super Bowl weekend and that Dog Man built on a pre-existing fanbase, it’s doubtful this has The Wild Robot-level legs in the weeks to come. Still, unless it drops like a stone, this should be 2025’s first $100+ million domestic grosser. Animated family movies continue to be a box office goldmine for theaters.
In second place was newcomer Companion, an excellent new thriller which opened to $9.4 million. That's not a terrible bow for a $10 million budgeted feature, but it's also kind of insane Warner Bros./New Line Cinema couldn't get this higher. Producer Zach Cregger saw his directorial debut Barbarian open to $10 million for Disney/20th Century Studios in September 2022. Universal got something as universally reviled as Night Swim to $11.7 million, while Sony secured a $12.3 million bow for Fantasy Island. Heck, Sony/Screen Gems got The Possession of Hannah Grace (a movie nobody remembers) to a $6.5 million bow in November 2018. How on Earth did Companion, which starred a handful of established names and secured great reviews (not to mention having IMAX ticket prices boosting grosses), only do $2.9 million better than Hannah Grace in its opening?
The big problem here was marketing, or rather, the lack of it. While later news sources claimed WB spent $29 million promoting Companion, the dearth of ads make me think that initial piece claiming Companion only got a $10 million marketing campaign was dead-on. After an eye-catching teaser four months ago, the Companion marketing campaign vanished until the start of 2025. Heck, ! No marketing meant Companion wasn’t on people’s radar and likely suggested a lack of confidence in its quality to the few aware it was hitting theaters in late January.
Coming hot off several other horror and horror-adjacent films in the marketplace like Wolf Man and Presence also didn’t help make Companion a must-see. If there’s good news here, it’s that Companion will almost certainly hold well in the weeks to come. It’s an optimal Valentine’s Day date movie while its B+ CinemaScore is tremendous for a thriller like this. For comparison’s sake, Barbarian got a C+ grade and still did four times its opening weekend. The Warner Bros. marketing doldrums that capsized so many of the studios releases in the last 15-18 months gave Companion a disappointing bow. However, it could totally still make up ground over the next few weekends. It’s a marathon for this one, not a race.
Shockingly, Mufasa: The Lion King didn’t collapse in the face of new animated family movie Dog Man. On the contrary, it only dipped 29% to gross another $6.1 million for a domestic haul of $229.5 million. This one’s still up in the air in terms of it can turn a profit worldwide on a $200 million budget, but it’s post-opening legs have been mighty impressive. One of Them Days continued to show some terrific weekend-to-weekend retention as it dipped only 25% to gross another $6 million. Its 17-day domestic total stands at a terrific $34.45 million or nearly 2.5 times its $14 million budget. Hitting $50+ million domestically looks to be in the cards for this sleeper hit, a welcome sight for the big screen comedy.
Rounding out the top five was last week’s big new comer Flight Risk, which fell 52% to gross another $5.6 million. It’s now amassed a so-so $20.9 million domestically after ten days. Next up was Sonic the Hedgehog 3, which fell 39% to gross another $3.2 million. Impressive this one, like Mufasa, also didn’t collapse right away with Dog Man in the marketplace. Sonic has now grossed $230.5 million domestically.
Moana 2, in its 10th weekend in the marketplace, refuses to die, grossing another $2.83 million, a 32% dip from last weekend. Neither Dog Man nor hitting PVOD could give this one a mighty weekend-to-weekend plunge. Moana 2 has now grossed an eye-popping $453.89 million domestically. A Complete Unknown eased 30% in eighth place this frame grossing an additional $2.16 million. It’s now up to $66.69 million domestically.
In its second weekend of wide release, The Brutalist grossed another $1.86 million (a tiny 30% dip from last weekend) million from 1,612 theaters for a $1,157 per theater average. It's now grossed $12.1 million in North America and there's still a month to go until the 97th Academy Awards where Brutalist will contend in 10+ Oscar categories. Cracking $20+ million domestically looks to be a safe bet for this Brady Corbet directorial effort. Den of Thieves 3 was officially green-lit this week, which means every extra penny Den of Thieves: Pantera earns is pure gravy. This weekend, it eased 47% and grossed $1.6 million for a $34.48 million domestic haul.
Presence dropped 60% this weekend to gross another $1.3 million for a $5.8 million domestic cume.
Dropping 49% this frame, Wicked scored another $1.20 million for a $470.86 million domestic total. Wicked now sits comfortably as the 26th biggest movie in history at the domestic box office. More people wanted to see Wicked in its 11th weekend of release than fellow Universal Pictures holdover Wolf Man in only its third frame! Falling another steep 64%, Wolf Man only accumulated $1.15 million this weekend. Its domestic total stands at a meek $19.94 million.
Losing 990 locations this weekend, Nosferatu fell 60% to gross another $800,000 for a robust $94,76 million domestic total. Brave the Dark collapsed in its second weekend, plummeting 66% and grossing only $769,646 for a $3.89 million domestic total. Valiant One, a war movie set in North Korea starring Lana Condor, opened to a dismal $700,000 1,275 theaters for a $560 per theater average. Another really poor launch from Briarcliff Entertainment. We need as many indie distributors as we can get right now, goodness knows, but Briarcliff desperately needs to improve its chops at launching theatrical titles. I'm Still Here expanded to 93 theaters and grossed $547,600 for a $1.06 million domestic haul.
September 5’s domestic box office run, to quote David Lynch in What Would Jack Do?, “came to a screeching halt” this weekend. Playing in 398 locations, it fell 59% this weekend to gross only $320,000. Its domestic cume is now at just $2.2 million. Love Me opened to just $204,036 from 527 locations for a dismal $387 per theater average.
Flow grossed $120,200 in its 11th weekend of domestic play at 161 theaters for a $747 per theater average. It's now grossed $3.91 million. Neon decided to randomly expand The Seed of the Sacred Fig into 250 theaters this frame, a 234 increase form last weekend. With no promotion and a limited number of showtimes (it's only playing once a day at my local AMC), Sacred Fig didn't have much of a chance. It only grossed $120,000 this weekend for a $480 per theater average. Its domestic gross of $632,834 does indicate it should at least creep past $1 million in its domestic run.
Here's a weird thing I realized this past week: Anora only played in wide release for 14 days. For comparison’s sake, 2014's Birdman (another award season darling launched in mid-October) played in wide release for 35 consecutive days in late 2014 alone (it would return to wide release in 2015 after its Oscar nominations). What a difference ten years makes for arthouse cinema. Birdman had no problem holding onto screens against November 2014 tentpoles just a decade ago, while Anora left wide release in the blink of an eye. Anyway, Sean Baker's film only grossed $63,600 this frame from 247 locations for a $257 per theater average. Its domestic total is now $15.2 million. Oscar nominations aren't giving this one a boost, but it's proven plenty profitable domestically and worldwide already. Still, Birdman’s box office trajectory from ten years ago suggests that, once upon a time, Anora could’ve done even better domestically…
No Other Land opened at the Film Forum in New York City this weekend and secured a fantastic $26,100. All We Imagine as Light cracked $1 million this frame with a $22,200 weekend haul and $1.021 million domestic haul.
Before we wrap up, let’s turn our eyes to the Chinese box office for a moment where history is being made. In the late 2010s and early 2020s, China’s theatrical landscape began delivering humongous box office grosses that could stand toe-to-toe with the highest-grossing movies ever in North America. 2024 was a much weaker year for the market, but now 2025 is taking off like a rocket for China with Ne Zha 2. This animated sequel scored a five-day opening haul of $430 million. That already puts it ahead of the lifetime grosses of all but nine movies released in China over from 2022 to 2022. Ne Zha 2 is nowhere near done either, with advanced ticket sales reportedly being massive for its impending weekday grosses.
Right now, Ne Zha 2 could crack $1+ billion in China alone in its domestic run. That would handily dethrone the $936 million domestic cume of Star Wars: The Force Awakens as the biggest single-country gross ever AND make NeZha 2 the first movie in history to make $1+ billion domestically. On top of all that, it's going to leave the first Ne Zha's Chinese gross of $719.75 million in the dust! Perhaps this family-friendly tentpole falls off a cliff after its massive opening, but right now, it looks like history is about to be made with a ten-digit lifetime gross from one country.
The top ten movies this weekend grossed $75 million, a 47% increase from this same weekend last year when the wretched Argylle dominated the empty marketplace with a meager $16 million bow. In one pleasant surprise, this frame was also up 45% from this same weekend in 2019, when Glass led a very weak crowd of theatrical releases. This frame was even up 17% from this same weekend in 2020 (another January 31-February 2 frame) when Bad Boys for Life led the domestic marketplace for a third consecutive time.
That’s not a shabby way to kick off February 2024, which has not only Captain America: Brave New World on the horizon but also potentially solid mid-range performers like Paddington in Peru and The Monkey waiting in the wings for their domestic launches. Dog Man’s overperformance is helping mightily and serves as a reminder that appealing movies can work anywhere on the calendar. After a really weak January 2025 that barely topped $540 million (exempting COVID-era January’s, that’s the lowest January domestic gross since 1997!), this weekend reminded everyone that it’s the movies that really determine when the marketplace thrives.