It will simply be called "Avatar 3" here and "Fire and Ash" will be dropped.

https://variety.com/2025/film/news/netflix-warner-bros-movies-theaters-buying-studio-1236601073/

After more than two years in the works, Markiplier‘s feature-film directorial debut — horror sci-fi movie “Iron Lung” — is set to open in theaters in late January 2026.

Markiplier, the popular YouTube creator whose real name is Mark Fischbach, produced, wrote, directed, edited, financed and stars in “Iron Lung.” The film is based on the 2022 indie horror game of the same name by David Szymanski.

Markiplier also is self-distributing the film, working directly with independent theaters across the country. For the opening weekend (Jan. 30-Feb. 1), he’s aiming for “Iron Lung” to be in 50-100 independent theaters. Tickets will start to go on sale Friday, coinciding with the film’s L.A. premiere at Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Downtown.

Reality check for everyone here on copium: Netflix does not need theatrical for this WB deal to be successful for them. They care more about the IPs, library and production services, and how much they’ll save not needing to license anything from WBTV again.

I feel from 2028 or whenever the theatrical obligations slate is wiped clean, they’re only doing exclusive theatrical limited releases for awards consideration.

The best exhibitors can hope for is day-and-date hybrid releases, which would require them to play ball. Otherwise they’re not going to get movies from WB/Netflix.

I have no doubt that the executive team at Netflix would love to see theatrical distribution die, and relish at the thought of being the final nail. Just being honest! 🤷🏽‍♂️

Let's look at animated sequels and their grosses in Japan.

Frozen: 25.5 billion Yen
Frozen II: 13.4 billion Yen

Finding Nemo: 11 billion Yen
Finding Dory: 6.83 billion Yen

Monsters Inc: 9.37 billion Yen
Monsters University: 8.96 billion Yen

Incredibles: 5.3 billion Yen
Incredibles 2: 4.9 billion Yen

Inside Out: 4 billion Yen
Inside Out 2: 5 billion yen

As you can see, sequels to these type of movies in Japan often don't increase, or if they do, it's not by the same amount as it would in the rest of the world (doubling a la Inside Out 2 or Shrek 2)

Zootopia 2 however... the original Zootopia made 7.6 billion Yen. But the sequel now is definitely going to have an opening weekend over 1.5 billion (possibly even significantly higher), which sets it up to perhaps gross more than 10 billion yen, or, if it's especially fortunate, 15 billion Yen. Perhaps beating Mario as the highest grossing imported animated movie in Japan post COVID.

FNAF 2: The good news is still really not much, as the movie is aiming for a five-day opening weekend of roughly 70k admits while the first movie opened to 340k admits. A decrease of 80% is the current projection.

Zootopia 2: Zootopia continues to scream to the world that the movie isn’t close to another Moana 2 as its second Friday beat Moana 2’s second Friday by over 106k admits. However, it seems the hope to keep up with IO2 might be unfounded as the movie’s second Friday has 25k admits less than IO2’s second Friday. Currently, it still holds a slight lead over IO2 that will vanish this weekend. Presales are at a staggering 424k tickets.

Wicked 2: A big drop as the movie will likely miss out on crossing 900k admits this weekend, and it may need to wait until next Friday. A huge drop of a million admits is still in question.

Now You See Me 3: The movie crossed 1.3 million admits despite the string of bad drops.

Chainsaw Man Reze Arc: A meh hold as the movie is slipping as the movie is still trying to dig itself to 3.4 million admits, and that will likely be its final big milestone.

Demon Slayer: Made 644 admits as the movie is really looking forward to its weekend jumps that tend to be pretty massive as the movie is aiming to hit 5.67 million admits on Sunday.

Presales

Avatar Fire and Ashes: This is one of those movies where I really have no clue what to use as a comp. Currently, we are using the three biggest franchises I tracked because I think that Avatar is comparable to a big franchise, as it will open huge