Mel Gibson's “Flight Risk” takes off at No. 1 during sluggish weekend box office

"Mr. Ambassador" has a hit on his hands.

Mel Gibson's airborne action-thriller Flight Risk debuted in the top spot at this weekend's box office. The Mark Wahlberg vehicle premiered on Friday, Jan. 24 to $4.4 million, nearly double the gross of the day's next-highest earner, the Keke Palmer-SZA buddy comedy One of Them Days, which took home $2.3 million, per Comscore.

By weekend's close, Flight Risk grossed $12 million — a solid first showing given the film's $25 million budget and its $16.2 million global gross. But comparing this film's premiere numbers to December's big late-month premiere gives an idea of what a sorry state the box office is in. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 premiered on Dec. 20 on even fewer screens to a walloping $62 million by that Sunday.

Related: Mark Wahlberg apologized to Flight Risk cast for being 'locked into' villain part, sticking to himself on set

Mufasa: The Lion King came in second place this weekend with an $8.7 estimated domestic gross, making for $221 domestic cumulative and $626.7 global. Disney's Lion King prequel, directed by Barry Jenkins and starring Beyoncé, also took the top spot at this weekend's international and global charts.

The top five is rounded out by One of Them Days, which earned $8 million this weekend for a $25 million cumulative domestic haul (the film did not open internationally); Sonic 3 came in at No. 4, with a $5.5 weekend gross, making for a $226 domestic gross and $446.6 global gross; and Moana 2, took the fifth spot with a $4.3 million weekend haul at the domestic box office, $450 million after nine weeks domestically, and $1.026 billion globally.

The Disney sequel, which is currently the subject of a contentious lawsuit, crossed the billion-dollar threshold last weekend and now threatens to knock Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone out of the top 50 highest-grossing films of all time.

The residual strength of the Christmas weekend box office helped juice the first proper moviegoing weekend numbers of 2025, but it's been a slow trickle ever since. Last weekend, One of Them Days opened to $11.6 million — again impressive considering its $14 million budget, but the overall picture was held diminishing returns for holdovers like Moana 2, Sonic 3, Nosferatu, and Mufasa.

The weekend before that, another franchise property topped the box office, but Den of Thieves 2: Pantera was only able to scrounge up $15.5 million in its premiere run. Disney's island-hopping sequel, Jenkins' live-action/CGI swirl of a prequel, and the third run of the cyan speedster have accumulated impressive sums over their nine, six, and six respective weeks in theaters. But the numbers are far lower than they were this time last year, when Mean Girls reached $28 million weekend one and added $32 million the next.

Related: Meet Kiros, Mads Mikkelsen's villainous pack leader of Disney's Mufasa prequel (exclusive)

The bottom half of the weekend's top 10 earners contains many more interesting stories than the leaders of the pack. Presence, Steven Soderbergh's 36th feature film as director (and the first of two new films to premiere within three months), debuted at the No. 6 spot with $3.4 million. The director of arthouse provocations like Sex, Lies, and Videotape and box office juggernauts like Magic Mike alike shot the ingenious haunted house film for only $2 million, so every dollar earned from here on out is icing on the cake.

The intimate, performance-driven Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown has demonstrated remarkable staying power for a film of its scale, holding strong in the No. 8 spot with $3.1 million domestically this weekend. That makes for a $63 million domestic and $74.2 global gross in its fifth week in release.

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A24's architectural epic The Brutalist expanded to 780 additional locations this weekend after picking up 10 nominations at the 2025 Oscars. That netted it an additional $2.8 million domestically, bringing its cumulative earnings to $9.3 million. One more weekend and director Brady Corbet's film, nominated in 10 Oscar categories, is sure to recoup its $9.6 million budget.

The only title premiering next weekend potentially with the teeth to take a bite out of Flight Risk is AI horror film Companion. Rising scream queen Sophie Thatcher stars, Jack Quaid costars, and most promisingly, the film was produced by Zach Cregger, director of 2022's horror breakout Barbarian, which earned an astonishing $40.8 million domestically on a $4.5 million budget.

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