By Janet H. Cho

Warner Bros. Discovery's Wuthering Heights notched the studio's ninth-straight number one box office debut over the long holiday weekend, with its domestic tally expected to reach $40 million through Monday.

Wuthering Heights is the biggest opening of the year so far, raking in an estimated $34.8 million in domestic box office sales over the three-day weekend, according to Comscore. The projected total sales through Monday, also from Comscore, includes $4.8 million globally on IMAX screens.

For Hollywood overall, estimated weekend box office sales of $119.2 million through Sunday are down 23% from last year, when Walt Disney's Captain America: Brave New World opened to $88.8 million over the three-day weekend and more than $100 million over the four-day holiday weekend, according to Comscore. But this year's estimated year-to-date domestic box office of $899.8 million is up 8.1% compared with the same point in 2025, Dergarabedian said.

Timing was everything for Wuthering Heights. With Valentine's Day on Saturday, the biggest movie-going day of the week, "there could not be a better date night option with both Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi promising to bring this modern adaptation of Emily Brontë's 1847 novel classic tale to a swooning audience," Comscore's head of marketplace trends Paul Dergarabedian said.

The film was written and directed by BAFTA-winning filmmaker Emerald Fennell, and drew a largely female audience.

The film garnered significant international interest, earning $42 million internationally for an impressive global debut total of $82 million, Dergarabedian said.

The weekend's No. 2 film was a Sony Pictures' GOAT, a PG-rated animated adventure about a small goat that dreams of playing a full-contact sport called roarball, dominated by the fiercest animals in the world. It stars Caleb McLaughlin, Gabrielle Union, Stephen Curry, Aaron Pierre.

GOAT, for Greatest of All Time, sold an estimated $26 million over the three-day weekend, and is expected to sell $32 million through Monday. It also sold $15.6 million internationally, for a $47.6 million debut weekend.

Opening at No. 3 was Amazon MGM Studios' Crime 101, a thriller starring Chris Hemsworth, Halle Berry, and Mark Ruffalo that sold $15.2 million through Sunday and is projected to sell $17.8 million through Monday.

Eric Handler, senior research analyst at Roth, wrote last week that while Hollywood got off to a good start, with $620 million in revenue, up 14% from the previous January and the best start to the year since 2019, "February is proving more challenging."

Although Hollywood studios are releasing 13 films this month, up from seven titles last year, he does not expect any of them to match last year's $89 million opening of Captain America: Brave New World.

"March should prove strong with two standout hits" in Disney Pixar's animated Hoppers, opening March 6, and Amazon MGM's sci-fi thriller Project Hail Mary, opening March 20, Handler wrote.

Write to Janet H. Cho at janet.cho@dowjones.com

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 15, 2026 16:35 ET (21:35 GMT)

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