Happy Monday 👋. Hope you got a little rest and are easing into the final stretch of the year.
The focus of today’s deep dive is what this holiday box office revealed about how attention actually works now. Avatar did what franchises are built to do. Marty Supreme showed how much weight marketing itself can carry when it turns effort into culture.
Together, they point to a clearer split between scale and momentum, predictability and participation. You’ll see that same tension echoed across today’s links, from media to creators to brands.
Let’s get into it.
Driving the news: The Christmas box office closed 2025 with a clear hierarchy. James Cameron’s Avatar: Fire and Ash dominated the holiday window, earning $88 million over four days and pushing its global total to $760.4 million.
The film continued to lead theaters in its second weekend and positioned itself to cross $1 billion worldwide before the end of the holiday stretch. Disney once again controlled the top tier of the box office through scale, familiarity, and global reach.
Alongside that dominance, Marty Supreme emerged as the most striking surprise of the weekend. The Josh Safdie directed sports dramedy delivered a $28.3 million domestic opening across five days, marking the second biggest debut in A24’s history.
The performance stood out not only because the film lacked franchise backing, but because it carried the largest budget A24 has ever committed, estimated between $60 million and $70 million. Within five days, the studio recouped nearly half of that investment.
The film entered a crowded holiday marketplace that included Avatar: Fire and Ash, Anaconda, and multiple specialty releases. Despite that pressure, Marty Supreme claimed second place over the four day weekend and posted a record breaking per location average during its limited early rollout in New York and Los Angeles.
The stakes: These results reinforce two parallel truths about the modern theatrical business. Franchises like Avatar still set the financial ceiling for the industry. They supply predictable revenue at global scale and remain essential to studio balance sheets, especially in years where overall domestic box office struggles to grow.
At the same time, Marty Supreme shows how original films can force their way into relevance when marketing creates momentum rather than awareness.
The film paired strong critical reception, including a 95 percent Rotten Tomatoes score, with sustained visibility driven by Timothée Chalamet’s involvement.
Word of mouth, reviews, and promotion worked together to lift an original, R rated sports film into the center of the holiday conversation.
For A24, the stakes ran higher than prestige. The studio needed a meaningful commercial outcome to justify its largest production spend to date. The box office response suggests that the strategy succeeded.
The friction: The marketing approach behind Marty Supreme demanded an unusual level of effort and exposure. Chalamet drove the campaign himself through public stunts, pop up retail, social videos, and real world spectacle. He placed his own labor at the center of the promotion and made that work visible. Industry observers noted that audiences responded as much to that effort as to the film itself.
That intensity creates clear limits around repeatability. The campaign depended on a star with real cultural gravity, a willingness to take risks in public, and enough time to sustain attention across weeks. Not every film can support that level of involvement, and not every actor can carry it in a way that feels convincing rather than forced.
Franchise films operate under a different set of pressures. Avatar relied on distribution power, global demand, and built in audience loyalty, not visible effort or personality driven promotion.
Together, these outcomes point to a split strategy for theatrical releases. Franchises continue to function as revenue anchors. Original films increasingly need marketing that invites participation rather than simply delivers information. Industry analysts describe this shift as marketing moving from promotion to participation, especially for star driven projects without existing awareness.
The bigger picture:
The Christmas box office delivered the strongest holiday revenue since the pandemic, even as the year overall struggled with limited supply caused by production delays and strikes. An eclectic slate helped drive turnout, but the results also clarified how value now forms.
For everything else, see below 👇:
Media
The Year Of Subway Slop
AI and nonsense ads trolled us on our commutes. — (Clio Chang for Curbed) — Link
These Trends Will Define The TV Landscape In 2026, According To Experts
Industry leaders say the next phase of TV will be shaped by consolidation, advertising innovation, and shifts in streaming economics. — (Mark Stenberg for Adweek) — Link
Digiday’s Comprehensive Guide To What’s In And Out For Publishers In 2026
From AI search disruption to the decline of display ads, this guide breaks down what publishers should prioritize and abandon in the year ahead. — (Jessica Davies for Digiday) — Link
Entertainment
There’s No Happy Ending For Movie Theaters, No Matter Who Wins Warner
Netflix, Paramount will both eventually have reasons to scale back theatrical releases — (Dan Gallagher for The Wall Street Journal) — Link
Marketing
Starbucks Links With MrBeast To Fuel Prime Video Competition Series
The coffee chain is teaming up with MrBeast to promote his Prime Video series “Beast Games: Strong vs. Smart,” including branded integrations and a limited-time drink. — (Jessica Hammers for Marketing Dive) — Link
Why LinkedIn Says Building Owned Prominence Beats Rented Ads In B2B Marketing
LinkedIn argues that investing in brand and mental availability delivers stronger long-term performance than relying on paid media alone. — (Anu Pillai for PPC Land) — Link
Creators
MrBeast’s Former Manager Says The Age Of Social Giants Is Fading
The rise of algorithmic feeds and niche communities is making it harder for creators to dominate platforms at massive scale. — (Dan Whateley for Business Insider) — Link
AI
Sam Altman Is Hiring For A Job Focused On Preventing AI Harms
OpenAI is advertising a new role focused on preparedness and safety as concerns grow over the risks posed by advanced AI systems. — (Robert Booth for The Guardian) — Link
Economy
NYC Slices Now Far More Expensive Than Subway Fare As Pizza Principle Disappears
The long-held idea that a slice of pizza costs about the same as a subway ride no longer holds true in New York City. — (Evan Simko-Bednarski for Gothamist) — Link
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