Wuthering Heights can’t come fast enough.
It’s another dismal weekend at the box office, as Hollywood didn’t even try to compete against the Super Bowl. Gone are the days when Taken could open to $24 million over that frame and then leg it out to $145 million. It’s not that big movies can’t succeed at this time, it’s just that they won’t.
As things stand, our number one film is Send Help, our first 2026 release to have bragging rights for the top spot two weeks in a row. Really, this was by default more than anything, but that’s not a terrible hold for a non-IP horror offering. For Sam Raimi, this is his first true step into the genre which initially defined his career since 2009’s Drag Me to Hell (well, unless we count certain scenes from Doctor Strange 2), and it’s going to easily outgross that film’s underwhelming $42 million total gross (against a $30 million budget) before all is said and done.
But the bigger success, really, is Iron Lung, a self-funded feature film from a YouTuber which only cost $3 million, had virtually no marketing, and has already made it to the $30 million milestone. It’s like Buried if it had actually made money and you didn’t have to look up what Buried was. Again, good on Markiplier for being able to pull this off. Hopefully it will launch an Iron Lung cinematic universe.
What couldn’t pull it off was The Strangers: Chapter 3, the “biggest” release of the weekend which somehow opened not only below our other newcomers (such as they are), but landed in fucking eighth place with a haul of only $3.5 million. Just terrible. For whatever reason, Lionsgate listened to the internet’s complaints about The Strangers: Chapter 1 “not including backstories” for the titular unnamed villains, so they decided fucking reshoots was the best way to go and completely restructured the already shot “sequels.” How is this not a bigger money-loser? Because Lionsgate shot three “movies” for the price of one here and blindly assumed it would result in easy dollar signs.
The other new releases fall into the “well, it could be worse” category. The Kevin James rom-com Solo Mio did “fine” for what it was with $7.5 million. Ditto for Dracula, which scored Vertical Entertainment their best opening ever.
Anyway, the top ten, via Deadline
- Send Help (20th) 3,475 theaters Fri $2.8M (-61%) Sat $4.7M Sun $2.5M 3-day $10M(-48%), Total $35.8M/Wk 2
- Solo Mio (Angel) 3,052 theaters, Fri $3.1M, Sat $2.7M Sun $1.3M 3-day $7.2M/Wk 1
- Iron Lung (Inde) 2,930 (-85) theaters, Fri $2M (-77%), Sat $3.2M Sun $800K 3-day$6M (-67%), Total $31M/Wk 2
- Stray Kids (BST) 1,724 theaters, Fri $3.2M, Sat $2M Sun $383K 3-day $5.6M/Wk 1
- Dracula (Vert) 2,050, Fri $2.1M, Sat $1.6M Sun $780K 3-day $4.5M/Wk 1
- Zootopia 2 (Dis) 2,715 (-165) theaters, Fri $900K (-30%) Sat $2.2M Sun $900K 3-day $4M (-32%), Total $414.5M/Wk 11
- Strangers Chapter 3 (LG) 2,565 theaters, Fri $1.58M, Sat $1.3M Sun $530K 3-day$3.5M/Wk 1
- Avatar: Fire and Ash (20th) 2,365 (-435) theaters, Fri $815K (-35%) Sat $1.9M Sun $785K 3-day $3.5M (-38%) Total $391.5M/Wk 8
- Shelter (Bear) 2,726 theaters, Fri $746K Sat $1.27M Sun $407K , 3-day $2.42M (-56%), Total $9.98M/Wk 2
- Melania (AMZ) 2,003 (+225) theaters, Fri$865K (-70%) Sat $1M Sun $470K, 3-day $2.378M (-67%), Total $13.3M/Wk 2