Chris Pratt's Critically Maligned Sci-Fi Movie Just Stole Avatar's Box Office Crown
It wasn't a terribly busy weekend at the box office, in no small part due to a massive snow storm that ravaged much of the U.S. That said, we did get a new number one movie for the first time in a month and a half, as "Mercy," a new futuristic sci-fi thriller starring Chris Pratt ("Guardians of the Galaxy") and Rebecca Ferguson ("Dune"), wound up taking the crown away from James Cameron's "Avatar: Fire and Ash."
Released by Amazon MGM Studios, director Timur Bekmambetov's "Mercy" opened to an estimated $11.2 million domestically. Though not exactly a barn burner of a debut, it was still enough to kick "Avatar: Fire and Ash" to number two, with $7 million. "Fire and Ash" initially topped the charts in late December with $89 million and hasn't looked back since. Cameron's third "Avatar" movie has now made well over $1.3 billion worldwide and become a sizable hit for Disney. But its reign at the top has come to a close after five weekends.
As for Pratt's latest, this is a win for Amazon but a qualified one. That's because the movie has been largely savaged by critics, currently boasting a lousy 21% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. However, it carries an 82% audience rating, suggesting that critics and actual moviegoers are a bit out of step on this one. In his own "Mercy" review for /Film, Jeremy Mathai called it "a punishing experience for those with even the lowest of expectations."
The film takes place in the near future and centers on Chris Raven (Pratt), a detective who stands trial after being accused of murdering his wife. He has just 90 minutes to prove his innocence to Judge Maddox (Ferguson), an A.I. judge that he once championed before it determines his fate.
Mercy may have won the day, but can it win in the long run?
Overseas, "Mercy" collected an additional $11.6 million, giving it a $22.8 million global start. That's not great for a movie with a reported $60 million production budget, which doesn't include marketing expenses. Granted, Amazon doesn't need its movies to profit outright in theaters since it's much more about supporting Prime Video, but it also can't have these movies losing a fortune on the reg, either.
In this case, the star power and appeal of Chris Pratt helped a bit in the early going. Pratt has several franchises to his name, including "Jurassic World" and "Super Mario Bros.," aside from playing Star-Lord in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Pratt even dethroned himself at the box office in 2023, with "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" unseating "The Super Mario Bros. Movie." He's a meaningful film star, no two ways about it.
That said, it's going to take a lot for this movie to make enough to be considered anything other than a financial disappointment in the long run. With Sam Raimi's "Send Help" and Markiplier's "Iron Lung" both opening this upcoming weekend, competition will get stiff fast. There's also the matter of "Wuthering Heights" arriving over Valentine's Day, which has breakout hit written all over it.
"Mercy" is likely going to run out of steam rapidly. If nothing else, it will forever have its place as the movie that finally ended the reign of "Avatar: Fire and Ash" atop the box office. "Knock at the Cabin" did that to "Avatar: The Way of Water," "Dear John" did it to the original "Avatar," and now Pratt and Ferguson's sci-fi thriller has joined that list, becoming a trivia question in the cinema history books.
"Mercy" is in theaters now.