‘Mercy’ Eyes $12M+, But Big Winter Storm Slows Business

SATURDAY AFTERNOON UPDATE: With power outages galore and 80k-plus customers sans electricity in Arkansas, New Mexico, Texas and Louisiana, we’re now getting reports about myriad circuits closing for Saturday and/or Sunday business. AMC will shut down 59 locations in Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, North Carolina, Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas City, KS and MO. Cinemark counts 24 theaters shuttering due to weather in Louisville, KY; Plano, TX, Huntsville, AL; Little Rock, ARK and more. Regal will see 22 sites close with 53 non-top three circuits dimming the lights. As we told you previously, so far in 2026, it’s bound to be the lowest grossing weekend of the year with $58.4M, -9% from the same period a year ago. While mega winter storms are par for the course at this time of year and poised to dent ticket sales, typically we can see an even lower weekend at the box office at other intervals, i.e. last year the lowest weekend at the B.O. was March 14-16 with $52.1M (when Novocaine was No. 1) while Feb. 7-9 was the second lowest grossing weekend of the year with $54.2M (Dog Man‘s second weekend at No. 1).

SATURDAY AM: Distributors are still awaiting more data on what circuits will be closing today and how that will sideline weekend numbers as we currently see them in a 2,000 stretch from Texas to New England that’s covered in ice and snow. The entire weekend for all movies looks to gross $58.4M, the lowest YTD, and down -9% from the same frame a year ago.

Amazon MGM Studios‘ Mercy is still on course for $12.6M after a near $5M previews/Friday. The start here is within the range of original sci-fi (i.e. The Creator at $14M), and meat and potato action guy movies, i.e. last January’s Flight Risk at $11.5M, and higher than Gerard Butler’s dystopian future sequel Greenland 2: Migration which debuted to $8.5M.

Audience scores aren’t great with a B- CinemaScore, 2 1/2 stars on Screen Engine/Comscore’s PostTrak and a low definite recommend of 45%. Only 31% said they were going to see it because of star Chris Pratt while 44% cited that the movie looked fun. Note in terms of Pratt’s theatrical releases, this is his first original movie as a leading man to be launched at the B.O. The Skydance movie he starred in during Covid, The Tomorrow War, was unloaded by Paramount to Amazon for a Prime debut which at the time in July 2021 racked up record movie viewership. Of those attending, 53% were Prime members, versus 68% who were Netflix subs and 50% who were Disney+ subs. Mercy will be making an ultimate destination for Prime down the road, but will have a PVOD window prior to its streaming debut.

Per iSpot, Amazon MGM Studios spent $14.4M in linear ads for Mercy, more than Sony’s $9.4M for 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, with ads airing across NFL, College Football, SportsCenter, the Today show and Gold Rush. Total house impressions were 455M for Mercy versus 385M for Bone Temple during its campaign.

PLF screens and Imax are repping around half of the weekend with 22% coming from 3D. Pic is playing evenly across the country, though best in South and South Central. The AMC Burbank in California is the pic’s top grossing venue with around $19K through Friday.

Diversity demos are 48% Caucasian, 21% Hispanic and Latino, 17% Black and 8% Asian American. Men over 25 a 45% are leading, followed by women over 25 at 31% with men under 25 at 15% and women under 25 at 9% trailing. The 18-34 set are repping close to half of the audience.

Cineverse’s Return to Silent Hill is looking like $1.6M yesterday for a $3.2M weekend. No CinemaScore or PostTrak but Rotten Tomatoes audiences are enjoying Mercy more at 80% than this horror threequel at 30%. Pic is playing best in the South and the West with the AMC Empire the highest grossing theater at close to $12K.

Here’s how the rest of the weekend is settling:

2. Avatar: Fire and Ash (20th) 3,150 (-150) theaters, Fri $1.7M (-46% from last Friday) 3-day $7M (-51%) Total $378.4M/Wk 6

FRIDAY PM: With states of emergencies issued in 15 states, we’re getting word of circuit closures, read all the AMCs in Oklahoma, and several B&B Theaters in the Midwest. This puts Amazon MGM Studios’ Mercy at $12.6M for the weekend after a $5M Friday/previews at 3,468 theaters.

States of emergencies were declared in Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, New York, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey and Kansas per CNN. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced a disaster declaration covering 134 counties. Washington D.C. is also under a state of emergency. Meanwhile at Sundance in Park City, UT, there were some light flurries today.

20th Century Studios’ Avatar: Fire and Ash notches $8M in weekend 6 at 3,150 theaters, -44%, at close to $380M, however, Disney’s Zootopia 2 with $6M at 2,930 locations crosses the four-century domestic threshold.

Sony’s 28 Years Later: Bone Temple is seeing a -70% tumble per sources with $3.8M at 3,506 sites with the storms partially to blame. Ten-day will be around $20.9M.

Lionsgate’s Housemaid in weekend 6 is seeing an estimated $4.7M, -44%, at 3,007 theaters with a running cume of $115.9M. We’ve gotten word that the production cost for this movie is way higher than the net $35M given to us (more like net $60M), but still — it’s a success for Lionsgate, so Amen.

Outside of the top 5 there’s Cineverse’s Return to Silent Hill booked at 1,850 locations posted a Friday/previews of $1.6M on its way to a 3-day of $3.2M.

Focus Features’ Hamnet in its wide break at 1,996 is on its way to around $600K today and $1.8M for the weekend rising to $17.4M stateside.

More as it comes.

FRIDAY AM: There’s one major studio wide entry this weekend, Amazon MGM Studios’ $60M dystopian-future thriller Mercy starring Chris Pratt, and while it did $1.5M in previews on Thursday, the entire three-day outlook could be impacted by the looming winter storm that’s hitting from Texas to New England. Currently, the Timur Bekmambetov-directed movie that also stars Rebecca Ferguson is looking at $12M-$15M domestic for a No. 1 win against the sixth weekend of 20th Century Studios’ Avatar: Fire and Ash, which is eying a 50% decline to around $7M. Update: we hear that Disney and Amazon are splitting Imax and PLFs between Avatar 3 and Mercy.

Those preview figures for Mercy are higher than Greenland 2: Migration, which did $900K this month, and Jason Statham’s A Working Man, which did $1.1M last year.

Marco van Belle’s screenplay follows a detective (Pratt) who stands trial accused of murdering his wife. He has 90 minutes to prove his innocence to the advanced AI judge (Ferguson) he once championed, before it determines his fate.

RELATED: ‘Mercy’ Trailer: Chris Pratt Sees A Scary Near Future Where AI Is Judge, Jury & Executioner

Mercy has an 83% offshore footprint this weekend, which began Wednesday in Belgium and Indonesia, with Australia, Brazil, Mexico, Germany and the Middle East opening Thursday. Friday brings the UK, Spain, Japan and China, with 80 territories overall. Comps for the Pratt movie are on par with other meat-and-potatoes action movies, i.e. A Working Man and Gerard Butler’s Den of Thieves: Pantera. A Working Man opened to $15.5M domestic and finaled at $37M stateside and $89.2M global off 47% Rotten Tomatoes critics and 87% audiences. Word from sources is that the No. 2-global-ranking pic is between Zootopia 2 and Mercy. These action movies tend to excel in Germany, Saudi Arabia, UAE, UK, Spain and Mexico.

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Also opening wide is Cineverse’s Return to Silent Hill, which is looking at low- to mid-single digits at 1,830 theaters. Critics on Rotten Tomatoes aren’t fans of either Mercy at 23% or Return to Silent Hill at 15%. The Christopher Gans-directed movie follows a man (Jeremy Irvine) who receives a mysterious letter from his lost love. He’s drawn to Silent Hill, a once familiar town now consumed by darkness. The pic is loosely based on the 2001 Konami video game Silent Hill 2 and is the third installment in the Silent Hill film series. Sony opened the original Silent Hill to $20.1M in 2006. Open Road had the 2012 sequel, Silent Hill: Revelation, which debuted to $8M.

Focus Features Hamnet, in the wake of eight Oscar nominations including Best Picture, is jumping from 718 theaters to 1,983. The Chloé  Zhao-directed period pic is up to $15.6M domestic and well north of $13M abroad. Sources are expecting this Jesse Buckley-Paul Mescal movie to take off at the global box office.

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This weekend’s potentially historic storm in the U.S. is ramping up today in areas including Dallas and Oklahoma City. It’s expected to expand eastward by Saturday morning, with ice and freezing rain hitting Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas and Louisiana. By later Saturday and into Sunday, the storm is forecast to affect the Mid-Atlantic states and hit the Northeast hard on Sunday afternoon and evening. Some 8-18 inches of snow is expected in such major metropolitan areas as New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Columbus, Ohio, and Washington, D.C. Meanwhile, in Park City, Utah, where the Sundance Film Festival is in the town’s final swing, the mountains are completely dry.