Avatar: Fire and Ash has had fierce competition as Marty Supreme breaks records upon its release.
The third Avatar movie has made $345 million in its worldwide opening (£255m), making it the second-best Disney global opening of 2025 (coming in second to Zootopia 2).
However, Marty Supreme has been breaking records too, showing there’s a little competition when it comes to which Christmas release will come out on top.
The Timothee Chalamet-led film isn’t set to be released until later this week, but has had huge success during its limited opening.
The film has sold out 92 shows so far across New York and Los Angeles and Deadline reports that it is one of the most successful limited debuts of all time.
The film had a per-screen-average (PSA) of $145.9k (£108k), the highest ever for distributor A24.
The success of Marty Supreme’s debut has unseated Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme as the top per-screen average this year.
The film isn’t set to be released in cinemas until Christmas Day in the US and Boxing Day in the UK, but this early success hints it could be a strong release this Christmas, in competition with the newly released Avatar sequel.
What are the box office predictions for Avatar 3?
The third film, Fire and Ash, had a global opening of $347m (£257.6) after being released on December 19. Domestically, it was off to a strong start after raking in $88m (£65.5m) during its domestic box office debut.
While this might sound impressive, it’s significantly less in comparison to the 2022 film Avatar: The Way of Water. The second Avatar movie had a domestic opening weekend of with $134m (£100m), and a global opening of $441.6m (£327.8m).
Way of Water ultimately made $2.3 billion globally, while the original Avatar made $2.92b worldwide.
While Fire and Ash isn’t expected to reach these targets, around this kind of ballpark might be expected.
But the reviews for this project have not been entirely strong.
Fire and Ash revisits the Avatar franchise and the lead character Jake Scully and his family as they encounter a new, aggressive Na’vi tribe, the Ash People.
The film has a 67% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, from over 270 film critics. In comparison, The Way of Water received a 76% rating, while the original 2009 release had a 81% ranking.
In direct contrast, Marty Supreme has managed to rake in very impressive reviews, with a 95% ranking on the review aggregator.
The film is a sports comedy-drama film produced and directed by Josh Safdie about an aspiring ping-pong champion Marty Mauser, who goes to extreme lengths to achieve greatness.
The films will have to duke it out to achieve the best Christmas release later this week – so fans will have to wait to see which movie comes out on top!
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