Box office: Wolf Man flops, Vaiana 2 finally billionaire

The American box office from last week had been unimpressive. And it's a repeat or even worse this weekend, where novelty floats One of Them Dayswhile the horror film Wolf Man by Blumhouse gets off to a bad start.

Sonic 3 sets a record

With only $75 million generated by the top 30 films in the ranking, the American box office for Martin Luther King Day 2025 was particularly low, and even one of the worst in the last ten years. In comparison, that of 2024 had accumulated more than 115 million dollars.

In this moribund panorama, the film One of Them Days hardly stands out from the crowd. This comedy carried by Keke Palmer (Nope) and singer SZA rakes in 11.6 million for her first weekend. A very good start, which ensures that it largely compensates for its modest budget (14 million).

Wolf Mananother novelty of the week, must settle for third place in the ranking for its debut. The horror film directed by Leigh Whannell only recorded $10.5 million for its first weekend. A score far too low for a film with a budget of 25 million, and which can be explained in particular by the poor critical and public reception received by the film (51/100 on Metacritic2.5 stars on Allociné).

In 2022, The Invisible Man had been a surprise hit with 144 million earned worldwide and a micro-budget (7 million). This weak start of Wolf Man therefore gives a blow in the wing to the vast reboot project of the famous Universal monsters signed Blumhouse Productions (Conjuring). Jason Blum's company has already planned a remake of The Mummy in the pipeline (a release is planned for 2026), for which she undoubtedly hopes for a better reception.

In the rest of the box office, we still find the indisputables of the month of December. Mufasa: The Lion King thus adds 11.5 million to its bag and now tickles the 600 million in the world. For his part, Sonic 3 reached 422 million worldwide and became the most popular film in the trilogy produced by Paramount, surpassing Sonic 2 (402 million).

Finally, after eight weeks of operation, Moana 2 finally reached the billion dollar mark worldwide, with an exact total of $1,012,230,932. It becomes the 32nd film from The Walt Disney Company to pass this symbolic threshold, and the 54th most popular film of all time at the box office (excluding inflation). An obviously exceptional total, especially when we remember that the film was originally developed as a series for the Disney+ streaming platform before being reimagined as a feature film for the cinema.

US box office from January 17 to 19, 2025 (estimates)