Fire and Ash’ Fends Off ‘Primate’ At the Box Office

It’s a new year, and that means new movies, starting with Primate. Despite coming off like a very January movie—a monkey raised by humans going berserk against his family and murdering them anytime they try to escape—it opened in theaters pretty solidly.

Per Variety, the horror film currently has a global tally of $13.4 million worldwide. Of that, $11.3 million came from North America, with generally solid reviews from critics and audiences alike. Trailers for this were ahead of several movies last year, and it helps there were secret screenings to further build up hype. Paramount really wanted you to know this is a big screen experience with a crowd, hence one promotional video telling you to “witness it for yourself.”

For as well as Primate did, though, it couldn’t take the top spot in the box office from Avatar: Fire and Ash. After hitting the $1 billion mark last weekend, it’s now added another $21.3 million, bringing the domestic total to $342.6 million and $1.23 billion globally. According to analyst Luiz Fernando, it keeps doing especially well overseas, and it maintains its place as 2025’s third highest-grossing movie behind Ne Zha II and Zootopia 2. And speaking of Zootopia, its global total is now $1.65 billion, and Fernando predicts come next week, it’ll beat Inside Out 2’s $1.7 billion box office and become the highest-grossing animated movie in Hollywood history.

Primate isn’t the only horror movie this month, as 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple and Night Patrol hit theaters on Friday. Other big genre films of the month include Mercy and Return to Silent Hill on January 23, then Send Help and Iron Lung on January 30.

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