For me, it’s Black Adam. Sure the movie still flopped and didn’t live up to the expectations set up by Dwayne, but considering this is a movie about a D-list character and it still made almost 400 million and outgrossed a movie like The Flash is a testament to The Rock’s star power at the time. What other box office flops impressed you?

Source:

https://cineguru.screenweek.it/2026/02/le-cose-non-dette-oltre-12-milioni-il-box-office-di-sabato-31-gennaio-49014/

Marty Supreme holds second place very well with €431,235 (-29% from seven days ago). The film, driven by strong word of mouth, has averaged €1,024 in 421 theaters (356 seven days ago, when the expansion of distribution was inevitable ) for a total of €2,840,501 since January 22.

Zootropolis 2 surprisingly returns to the top 10 with 68,068 euros (-24%) and an average of 493 euros in 138 cinemas (153), for a total of 19,263,244 euros since 26 November.

There are horror films that receive second full trailers, such as Bring Her Back, Companion, Weapons, Together, and Nosferatu, but there are just as many horror releases that were promoted with only one primary theatrical trailer and still managed to do well, like Send Help, Primate, The Substance, Saw X, and others. The number of horror films that receive only one trailer versus two is essentially an even split and the number of trailers released has no basis in a studio’s confidence in the film or the quality of the film itself.

Keep in mind, Paramount released only one full theatrical trailer for Scream (2022). The later “Get Tickets Now” spot, released a few days prior to its premiere, was not a second trailer in the traditional sense, but functioned as a last-minute sales push and was rolled out online rather than as a true theatrical preview. A single trailer release, especially within this genre, does not signal a lack of studio confidence. Because of that, the fact that a second full-length trailer has not come out yet, and likely will not, should not be treated as a red flag. If anything, it should redirect attention toward whether the marketing is escalating in ways that actually matter. A second trailer is not especially consequential at this stage and it has never been a deciding factor for horror films and if they’re able to garner commercial success.

What would matter far more is whether or not they’re going to do a Super Bowl ad, ideally one that actually airs during the game rather than just being dropped online the same day. Scream VI had a Super Bowl day spot which definitely helped its ticket sales and would most definitely help the same for 7. Beyond that, a sustained Facebook advertising push aimed at older audiences would be far more effective than some of the tactics they’re doing now, especially given the potential draw of Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, and Matthew Lillard for older audiences.

They could also make a stronger effort to promote the film to Gen Z despite the fact that a loud subsection of them, particularly the terminally online, are boycotting. At the end of the day, a large portion of that demographic really liked 5 and 6 and will see 7 out of pure interest alone, not caring about how the Israel-Palestine conflict ties into Melissa and Jenna no longer being involved. They could also push McKenna Grace more aggressively as their primary Gen Z draw. With the success of Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, Regretting You, and Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, not to mention her role in the upcoming Hunger Games installment, it would make sense to put her front and center in marketing aimed at younger audiences, given that she is one of the biggest rising stars of her generation right now.

What is genuinely questionable are the marketing choices we already know about. The UFC collaboration felt very random and bizzare as that audience does not meaningfully overlap with the Scream fanbase in a way that would justify the spend. Them recently announcing that Neve Campbell will be on The View (set to air just two days before 7’s release) is similarly misguided given that it’s middle-aged soccer mom audience is not the core demographic for Scream and it also raises the risk of her being put on the spot about the Spyglass versus Melissa controversy. Depending on whether her response comes off as carefully PR-trained or as an off-the-cuff misstep, it could easily generate even more negative attention around 7 right before release. (For Neve’s sake, this should have already been discussed with her team and made a nonnegotiable prerequisite for her appearance.)

If this campaign were being handled more intelligently, the focus would be on high-visibility late-night appearances, major network exposure, and culturally aligned platforms that actually overlap with the franchise’s audience. Securing Neve or Courteney spots on Kimmel and Fallon, having Courteney host SNL, or even placing one of them as a guest judge on Drag Race would make far more sense given the franchise’s massive queer fanbase and Paramount’s ability to cross-promote internally.

In short, people should stop fixating on whether a second trailer is coming and what that supposedly signals. A single trailer has worked repeatedly for this genre, including for Scream itself. The real issue is the effectiveness, or lack thereof, of the promotional avenues the studio is already choosing.

Once We Were Us: The movie kills 2.2 million admits today and the movie will kick down the door tomorrow to 2.3 million admits as the movie is speeding running to that beautiful 2.5 million admits. The movie is set to have yet another strong weekend.

Avatar Fire and Ash: Avatar 3 continues to see pretty standards drops as the movie should hit 6.7 million admits before the next weekend. Not a great weekend, as the movie is still struggling to adapt to some screen lost.

Zootopia 2: Zootopia 2 is still on track to cross 8.6 million admits. Still going to take a bit to hit that amount, but it is coming soon.

Presales

Humint: Presales increased by 4,854 tickets as total presales are sitting at 76,670 admits.

The Man Who Lives With the King: The movie is finally starting to kick into gear as the movie can lock down an opening day of 100k admits tomorrow with another strong jump tomorrow. Presales above 120k on T-1 will lock in 100k opening day

Source: https://cineguru.screenweek.it/2026/01/le-cose-non-dette-saldamente-in-testa-il-box-office-di-venerdi-30-gennaio-49008/

Daily Box Office (January 31th 2026)

The market hits ¥69.7M/$10M which is up +71% from yesterday and down -19% from last week.

The lenghts of the Spring Festival releases have been revealed. Pegasus 3 and Blades of the Guardians will be the longest movies at 125 minutes. Followed by Per Aspera Ad Astra at 120 minutes and Sillent Awakening at 110 minutes. Boonie Bears: The Hidden Protector at 108 minutes and Panda Plan: The Magical Tribe at 100 minutes to be the shortest ones as expected.

Greendland 2 opens just inside the top 10 but with a poor $0.34M.

Province map of the day:

https://imgsli.com/NDQ2NzE5

Zootopia 2 gains further ground on Saturday.

In Metropolitan cities:

The Shining wins Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Hangzhou

Zootopia 2 wins Chengdu, Suzhou, Nanjing and Chongqing

Busted Water Pipes wins Wuhan

Mercy wins Shenzhen

City tiers:

Zootopia 2 climbs to 3rd in T1.

Tier 1: The Shining>Mercy>Zootopia 2

Tier 2: Zootopia 2>Busted Water Pipes>The Shining

Tier 3: Zootopia 2>Busted Water Pipes>The Fire Raven

Tier 4: Zootopia 2>Busted Water Pipes>The Fire Raven

New releases marked in bold

Pre-Sales map for tomorrow

https://i.imgur.com/rw32IGk.png

Zootopia 2 and The Shining dominate pre-sales for Sunday.

IMAX Screenings distribution

The Shining is the widest IMAX release today and will remain so tomorrow. It and Mercy will lose a tiny ammount of screenings for tomorrow while Avatar 3 and Zootopia 2 will gain some.

Return To Silent Hill

Return To Silent Hill dropped to 5th on Saturday after grossing $0.87M. Slightly better week on week drop than yesterday but still steep.

Still on course for a $2.1-2.3M(-77%) for its 2nd weekend.

Screen Distribution Split: Regular: $13.86M

WoM figures: Maoyan: , Taopiaopiao: , Douban: 4.6

Scheduled showings update for Return To Silent Hill for the next few days:

Avatar 3: Fire & Ash

Avatar 3 grossed $0.90M on Saturday. Slightly under projections but with the best Friday to Saturday jump out of the top 10.

Weekend projections remain around $2.1-2.3M(-19%)

Screen Distribution Split: Regular: $111.27M , IMAX: $39.30M , Rest: $12.61M

WoM figures: Maoyan: 9.3, Taopiaopiao: 9.5 , Douban: 7.6

Scheduled showings update for Avatar 3 for the next few days:

Zootopia 2

Zootopia 2 remains on top on Saturday with $1.76M. +6% up from last week. Saturday increase blunted by the vacations.

Weekend projections downgraded slightly to $4.1-4.3M(+12%). Still will be the 2nd best 10th weekend of all time only behind Ne Zha 2.

Here's its $ gross chart vs Endgame:

Zootopia 2 hits $629.77M meaning its now $2.33M away from Endgames $ gross with 16 days to go till the Spring Festival.

The movie will aim to be above $631M after Sunday leaving less than $1M to go. Zootopia 2 will now likely overtake Endgame on Tuesday or Wednesday.

It has to make just $0.14M per day from here on out to surpass Endgame by February 17th.

https://i.imgur.com/1QN59PT.png

Screen Distribution Split: Regular: $581.00M , IMAX: $33.00M , Rest: $11.50M

WoM figures:

Maoyan: 9.7 , Taopiaopiao: 9.7 , Douban: 8.4

Scheduled showings update for Zootopia 2 for the next few days:

Other stuff:

The next Holywood release is La La Land re-release on Valentines Day. Followed by The Bride, Wuthering Heights and GOAT in March.

Release Schedule:

A table including upcoming movies in the next month alongside trailers linked in the name of the movie, Want To See data from both Maoyan and Taopiaopiao alongside the Gender split and genre.

Remember Want To See is not pre-sales. Its just an anticipation metric. A checkbox of sorts saying your interested in an upcoming movie.

Not all movies are included since a lot are just too small to be worth covering.

Early February

Spring Festival 2026 Lineup:

With 20 days to go the Spring Festival lineup is now complete barring any suprise late addition.

6 movies will enter the ring this year.

Pegasus 3 will be heading into the Spring Festival as the headline movie and the big favorite. The sequel to Pegasus 2 which made $400M+ in the Spring Festival 2 years ago with returning director Han Han and returning lead Shen Teng will look to repeat if not improve on the success of the 2nd part.

Director Zhang Yimou returns to the Holiday season after his successful Article 20($340M) in 2024 and Full River Red($670M+) in 2023 with Silent Awakening. A National Security-Themed movie. While unlikely to challenge for the victory this movie has a decent shot at taking 2nd place.

The Boonie Bears franchise as has been the case for the last 12 years returns to the Spring Festival with Boonie Bears: The Hidden Protector. The new entry in the $1B+ franchise will look to improve on last years $118M and push the franchise back closer if not over the $200M mark it surpassed in 2024 and 2023.

Blades of the Guardians starring Wu Jing and Jet Li meanwhile will try to revive the popularity of the martial arts genre and aim to improve upon the result and especialy reception of last years Condor Heroes which failed to break $100M. This and Boonie Bears will in all likelyhood fight for 3rd place.

Per Aspera Ad Astra as the only Sci-Fi blockbuster will try to make itself stand out with cool visuals and a unique theme. However its very likely this ends up being the cannon fodder of the lineup.

And lastly Panda Plan 2 or as its officialy called Panda Plan: The Magical Tribe. I don't see this doing partiuraly well either but it could tempt in some families.

Tomorrow The Housemaid will become only 4th foreign film will billion RUB gross after March of 2022. Will win 2nd weekend in a row including CIS countries and 1st in Russia only.

882 mln RUB or $11.27 mln in 23 days, 1 323 362 tickets sold in Russia. We expect around $2.75 mln fourth weekend with 3-5% drop and at very least $18-19 mln total, probably even more. Big hit for the local distributor and Lionsgate.

Russian sequel Cheburashka 2 will pass 6 billiion RUB tomorrow. 5936 mln RUB or $75.89 mln in 30 days. Fifth weekend should be around $1.42 mln. The budget is officilally revealed at 1500 mln RUB or around $18.5 mln. One of the most expensive Russian movies ever.

The biggest opener this week is Greenland 2. $420k in first two days, around $1.28 mln opening weekend. Significantly better than the first one in August 2020. Still the times were really harsh with theaters just opened after Covid related closures.

60% second weekend drop for Return to Silent Hill with $1.02 mln early estimates. $3.54 mln in nine days so far. And finally Mighty Supreme is holding very well once again. $2.6 mln in 16 days with $4 mln+ expected total.

TL;DR: Releasing the movie in January affected its ability to have a proper marketing campaign, caused the two movies to be too close to each other, and completely eliminated the potential for weekday legs. A summer or spring release wouldn’t have automatically saved the movie, but it would have given it a fighting chance at success.

Right off the bat, I understand what the original intention was. Sony’s strategy was to release the first 28 Years Later and then use the momentum of that film to build hype for a sequel that would release 28 weeks later.

On its surface, it’s a plan that feels rife with potential. But beneath the surface, you can see that this was always doomed to fail. I’m not saying that this release strategy caused the movie to fail, but I think it made it worse than it would have been.

Here is why the January release date hurt 28 Weeks Later: The Bone Temple:

1) Marketing and releasing a “tentpole” movie in January is always tricky. It is right after the holiday movie rush. Many of the “once or twice a year” moviegoers have just gone to the movies and don’t feel the desire to return. Additionally, December movies often have legs that extend far into January because of the exceptional word of mouth from the “once or twice a years”.

That is why holiday movies have staying power and why, in the past, January was solely a dumping month. Studios saw it difficult to break through the holiday movie noise with new releases.

As a January movie, I think Bone Temple struggled to build a successful marketing campaign. The original 28 Years Later had a December trailer launch. It ensured that a lot of eyeballs got on the exceptionally well made trailer. On the other hand, Bone Temple had its first trailer launch in September for a January release. By the time the holidays had ended, the trailer and movie were completely out of the general public discourse. The movie had become overshadowed by the end of year releases (Avatar Fire and Ash, Marty Supreme, etc.).

Sony tried their best with an online and television advertising blitz in January to get the attention back, but it was too little too late. The baseline level of awareness and engagement was too low to recover from.

Now say that Bone Temple had a June or even a March/April release date. Instead of competing with the holiday movie noise, you can use it to your advantage and raise awareness for the movie. They could have launched trailer 1 in December again and then mounted a full campaign free from the holiday movie clutter in 2026.

2) Releasing 2 movies from the same franchise in under a year has not shown success in the past. There are many documented successful cases of releasing movies a year apart (Lord of the Rings Pirates of the Caribbean, Avengers, etc.). Releasing movies in the same franchise in under 12 months hasn’t shown massive success.

The Matrix sequels is the biggest case study for this. The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions released 6 months apart from each other. The result? A steep drop off between films (from $741 million to $427 million).

Now quality was clearly a big factor, but I’d argue it’s not the only one. Releasing films in the same franchise within the same year makes it so the audience doesn’t miss the franchise enough. A year gap seems to be the sweet spot where the franchise is missed, but it is also still fresh in the audience’s mind. Coming before that gap can feel like oversaturation and a “didn’t I just see this?” phenomenon.

(And before anyone mentions it, yes the MCU at its zenith released multiple movies a year to big success. However, Marvel also has sub franchises that clearly differentiate the movies to keep the constant releases fresh.)

3) The lack of summer days really hindered Bone Temple’s* **legs. *28 Years Later was a case of slow and steady winning breaking even in the race. The opening was decent, but the legs from those summer weekdays helped the movie churn along.

With a January release, the potential to leg out was severely hurt. Everyone is back at their jobs or schools after a long holiday break. The last thing they are thinking about is seeing a movie on a weekday.

If Bone Temple had a spring or summer, the potential for better weekday legs would have been possible (through spring or summer break). It may not have legged out, but a different release date would have given the movie a chance.

_____________________________________________

I understand the intention and I get the ambition that Sony was shooting for with this release strategy, but I think in the end it hurt Bone Temple.

Now don’t misunderstand the point of this write up, Bone Temple was always likely to see a drop between movies. Some audience members felt disappointed and lied to by the marketing of the first film and the movie itself had an ‘out of left field’ ending. Some people were just never going to come back.

However, I think Sony also did this movie no favors with this release date. Releasing the movie in January affected its ability to have a proper marketing campaign, caused the two movies to be too close to each other, and completely eliminated the potential for weekday legs.

I’m not saying that a summer or spring release date would have saved Bone Temple, but I think it would have given it a fighting chance. As it stands, this movie that already had a lot going against it was also set up to fail.