Oh ‘Mercy’ — A Cold Spell Froze Out the Box Office This Weekend, but It Can Get Worse

You’ve seen the headlines about a frigid weekend at the box office, hampered by hundreds of theater closures across the country because of hazardous cold spells along the East Coast, and you might be thinking: Can it get any worse for the industry? Believe us, it can.

This weekend, the domestic box office topped out at an estimated $57,431,515 for all films in the marketplace in the U.S. and Canada, according to data from Comscore. That number was slowed by at least 250 theater closures in 30 states and 200 cities, possibly more, also according to Comscore. The No. 1 movie at the box office, Amazon MGM’s sci-fi thriller “Mercy” starring Chris Pratt, grossed only $11.2 million. It has the distinction of knocking “Avatar: Fire and Ash” off the top spot, but it’s still the lowest top-grosser for a weekend in a while. The other major opener, “Return to Silent Hill” from Iconic Events, made only $3.2 million, good for seventh place.

But according to Comscore, there were five different weekends in 2025 that had a lower total weekend gross than this one. Compared to this same weekend from last year, 2026’s was down by about 16 percent, when the No. 1 movie in the country was the Mel Gibson-directed thriller “Flight Risk,” which made $11.5 million in its opening weekend. But there were several weekends last year that not only had an overall lower box office domestically, but did so even though the No. 1 movie made more than “Mercy” did.

The worst box office weekend of 2025 was Halloween weekend, according to Comscore, when the No. 1 movie was “Black Phone 2” with just $8.3 million domestic. The overall domestic total for all films opening that weekend was just $53.4 million, though that total does not include roughly $5.3 million of unreported gross from Netflix’s “KPop Demon Hunters” screenings.

Last year also saw an extraordinarily bad six weeks between February and early March 2025, in which four of those five weekends produced weekends all under $60 million, let alone the $57.4 million from this weekend. The No. 1 movie in the country those weeks were “Mickey 17,” “Captain America: Brave New World,” “Dog Man,” and “Novocaine.” A few of those made more in their second, third, or fourth weekends in theaters than “Mercy” did in its first.

A month like that points to a scary place for the industry. All four of those movies are completely different, including an animated family film, a tentpole superhero sequel, a prestige-y sci-fi picture with star power, and an original action-comedy. Theaters always talk about needing diversity of content from the studios, and those four movies are all across the board, but audiences didn’t connect with any of them. Theaters might also argue they need more quantity, and on the weekend of February 28 for instance, only one movie, “Last Breath,” was a new opening that managed to crack the Top 10.

‘Dead Man’s Wire’Row K Entertainment

But what’s newly troubling about this weekend is the new releases all came from outside the traditional theatrical studios, seemingly sensing an opportunity in the market that may not be there. Amazon MGM’s “Mercy” is one of the studio’s first wide theatrical releases as part of an ambitious push into theaters that could see the studio releasing 14 movies this year. Iconic Events and Cineverse’s “Return to Silent Hill” is an IP horror film based on a popular video game franchise, though it may have been hampered by brutal reviews. And in its third weekend (though still only on 621 theaters), Row K’s inaugural release “Dead Man’s Wire” from director Gus Van Sant has made just over $2 million domestic and did only $181K for the weekend.

It also doesn’t help that “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” from Sony plummeted in its second weekend, dropping 71.2 percent for a domestic total of just $20.7 million against a $63 million budget. (It’s done a tick better internationally.) Paramount’s “Primate” too dropped 67.4 percent in its third weekend, for just $23.5 million domestic.

If we want to be optimistic, the year-to-date box office is actually up 14 percent from where we were at this same point last year, and maybe that gap widens considering how bleak last February was. But that has all to do with both “Avatar: Fire and Ash” and “Zootopia 2” still hanging around in theaters and keeping the overall box office afloat. And it’s not as if the next month has too many blockbusters on the horizon to get too excited about. (“Wuthering Heights,” “Scream 7,” and “The Moment” are a few of the hopefuls.)

Such could be the new reality for the box office, where the industry has to deal with extreme lows as often as its extreme highs. Between 2016 to March 2020 before COVID, only one weekend in that entire span was below $60 million. Between 2022 to 2025 however, there have been 19 weekends to fall below that dubious mark.

Last year, the first quarter of the box office was dismal, and it wasn’t until “A Minecraft Movie” in April that things really picked up. (The 2025 box office finished slightly ahead of 2024.) With only a few notable blockbusters coming in the next month or so, the same could be true this year.

“There are definitely fallow periods, and that makes it tough on theater owners because they have to budget for staffing, popcorn, food and beverage,” Paul Dergarabedian, senior analyst at Comscore, told IndieWire. “Look at the roller coaster it is. In the past you wouldn’t have those huge ups and downs. It’s pretty incredible. I look at each month, and it’s literally a sine wave, up and down, up and down.”

So yeah, it’s cold now, but it could be a long winter.