UPDATED, 11 AM: So Sony’s 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is still looking at a $20M+ 4-day opening at 3,400 sites in North America, finally unseating 20th Century Studios’ Avatar: Fire and Ash from No. 1 in its 5th frame. That movie is looking like $18M-$19M over the MLK holiday weekend.
Previews for Bone Temple start at 2 p.m. Thursday in 2,900 sites. Avatar 3 still has the Imax theaters, while the Infected (don’t call them zombies) have all the PLFs.
The best heat in first choice for Bone Temple is from guys over 25. The movie’s temperature on tracking in first choice is about as hot as New Line’s Evil Dead Rise ($24.5M in 2023) and Focus Features’ Nosferatu ($21.6M 3-day in 2024) and way hotter than Paramount’s Primate ($11.1M opening last week). 28 Years Later benefited from previews on Juneteenth, which propelled the Danny Boyle horror threequel to a $30M opening last summer — one of the best for horror in 2025 — and a domestic of $70.4M, global of $151.3M. Production cost of Bone Temple was $63M net, while 28 Years Later was $60M net before global P&A spend.
RELATED: The Movies That Have Made More Than $1 Billion At The Global Box Office
There’s no Rotten Tomatoes critics score on Bone Temple yet, but the last 28 Years Later did 89% with critics, 63% with audiences, a B CinemaScore and an OK 52% definite recommend on Screen Engine/Comscore’s PostTrak, with a big turnout by men over 25 at 49% followed by 26% women over 25.
Overseas, Bone Temple unseals itself Wednesday in the UK, France, Belgium and Indonesia, then in Australia/New Zealand, Brazil, Germany, Mexico, Italy, Netherlands and Saudi Arabia on Thursday, followed by Japan, Poland and Spain on Friday. That’s a 98% offshore footprint, except Korea and Thailand.
RELATED: ‘Avatar: Fire And Ash’ Lords Over All With 10 VES Awards Nominations
MLK use to be a time when studios would put the pedal to the metal in mid-January, but the Nia DaCosta directed, horror sequel penned by Alex Garland penned and produced by Boyle is the only major studio release, a la 2022, when Paramount opened Spyglass/Dimension’s reboot of Scream to $33.8M. What gives? There’s no counterprogramming. Last year, Sony had the sleeper R-rated comedy One of Them Days, which bowed to $11.8M and did something of a near 5x multiple to $50M stateside. This year, it looks like everyone largely was avoiding Avatar: Fire and Ash, expecting that movie to eat up everything. Back in 2023, Avatar: The Way of Water led the MLK box office in its fifth weekend with $39.88M, the best 4-day for the MLK stretch post-Covid. That weekend, Lionsgate opened the Gerard Butler actioner Plane to $11M, while Warner Bros had New Line’s House Party at $4.6M.
Expanding this weekend are Focus Features’ Hamnet, from 232 to around 500 sites after its Golden Globe wins for Best Feature Drama and Best Actress (Jessie Buckley), and Row K’s Gus Van Sant crime thriller Dead Man’s Wire with a wide break to north of 1,000 theaters in Weekend 2. The expectation is around the low single digits over four days for that distrib’s first theatrical release, which it scooped out of TIFF for the mid-seven-figure range. Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet counts a current domestic cume of $12.9M, with global north of $17M.
RELATED: Golden Globes Analysis: Paul Thomas Anderson Likely To Have One More Battle With ‘Hamnet’ At The Oscars
PREVIOUSLY, DECEMBER 29: Sony’s sequel 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple hit tracking last week in what looks to be a $20M-plus 4-day opening over the MLK holiday weekend.
That would make director Nia DaCosta’s British horror pic written by Alex Garland and produced by Danny Boyle one of 32 movies to open north of $20M at the Friday-through-Monday MLK box office.
MLK Day, which falls on January 19, often is seen as the cap-off of holiday moviegoing. While 94% of colleges and K-12 schools are off for the Monday holiday, per ComScore, 76%-84% colleges remain on break during the first week of January, while 37%-42% are off during the second weekend. Tickets for Bone Temple go on sale on January 2; advance presales always are a factor in working a projection, in addition to tracking.
Sony had early fan screenings of Bone Temple on December 9 in Los Angeles, New York, Miami and Austin, London, Paris and Berlin. Following a rapturous one at AMC’s Century City, we told you first that Sony was moving forward on their option for the third 28 Years Later title (fifth overall in the franchise since 2002) with Cillian Murphy in talks to star and Garland already penning the screenplay. Boyle said during 28 Years Later‘s summer press tour that he’d like to helm the next movie.
RELATED: ‘Peaky Blinders’ Movie Sets Theatrical & Streaming Release Dates; Netflix Unveils Official Title & Teaser Poster
28 Years Later follows the human survivors in a future where the Infected remain years after the events of 2007’s 28 Weeks Later — but they don’t walk among us, rather they’re penned in the wilderness. The movie opened in June to $30M stateside and went onto to gross $70.4M domestic and $151.3M worldwide. The Boyle-directed pic, the second he directed in the series, pulled in close to 50% men over 25, 26% women over 25, 13% men under 25 and 13% women under 25. Bone Temple remains a first choice on tracking among men over 25, followed by women under 25, with similar scores to that of last year’s Nosferatu, which posted a 3-day opening over Christmas stretch of $21.6M, 5-day of $40.8M.
All in, the entire British horror series across three features has minted close to $300 million worldwide. Bone Temple, which takes place promptly after 28 Years Later, is set against a divided society in which we see young Spike teaming with Sir Jimmy Crystal’s gang (Jack O’Connell) as Ralph Fiennes’ Dr. Kelson looks to quell the infected outbreak. No RT critics and audience scores yet, though fans and press have exclaimed their praises to the sky on social, which you can read below.
RELATED: The Movies That Have Made More Than $1 Billion At The Global Box Office
Sony recently kept big-screen comedies alive over the Christmas stretch with the Jack Black-Paul Rudd movie Anaconda posting a $23.6M 4-day opening.
Also opening on January 16 alongside Bone Temple is distributor Row K’s first theatrical release, Dead Man’s Wire from Gus Van Sant, as well as a wide break of Focus Features’ Chloe Zhao-helmed Oscaqr contender Hamnet, which currently is in limited release.
RELATED: Read The Screenplay For ‘Hamnet’ Chloé Zhao’s Take On What Drove Shakespeare To Create His Magnum Opus