Images courtesy Aviron Pictures, whether they want to admit it or not.
2/10 After acquiring the distribution rights to Serenity in February 2018, Aviron Pictures set a Sept. 28 release date, where it would have competed against nothing even vaguely memorable, and later pushed that back to Oct. 19, where it would have an early Oscar season date against Halloween.
Then, suddenly, Aviron pushed it all the way back to Jan. 25 and didn’t tell anyone. Marketing completely stopped – to be aware that Serenity was coming out, you would have had to already have seen trailers in anticipation of the Oct. 19 release, be the kind of person who actually pays attention to movie news and be the kind of person who goes to see movies that the studio clearly doesn’t believe in.
Aviron waited until the first big movie of the year, Glass, came out a weekend beforehand, and only then quietly slid Serenity onto screens. What’s behind the curtain that’s so bad that early January wasn’t a deep enough hole to hide it in? Anyone who’s seen Serenity, whether they hated it or even if they liked it, can easily tell you.
Super Bowl weekend is always bad news for the box office, but this was one of the worst weekends in history, with movies only making $73.4 million total, with no individual film making even as much as $10 million. Glass earned its third box office crown by default with $9.5 million, and The Upside hung around for its third second-place finish with $8.7 million. Newcomer Miss Bala failed to really get off the ground, earning just $6.7 million for third place. Christmas week superhero releases Aquaman and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse continued to swim or swing around in fourth and fifth place with $4.9 million and $4.5 million, respectively- 
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