From Gateway News. (Image: Screenshot Angel Studios/YouTube)
Life imitated art on December 19 2025, when the South African animation film David was released across North American cinemas — on the same day as Avatar: Fire and Ash, The SpongeBob Movie: Search for Squarepants, and The Housemaid.
For context, the first two Avatar films rank first and third on the all-time global box office chart; SpongeBob has been called “the number-one-most-memed show of all time”*; and The Housemaid is an adaptation of Freida McFadden’s bestselling thriller, starring Sydney Sweeney, IMDb’s fifth most popular star of 2025.
In David, when the giant Goliath rises to terrorise a nation, a young shepherd steps forward, armed with only a sling, a few stones, and unshakable faith.
In an upset of David vs Goliath proportions, the biblical animation outperformed both SpongeBob and The Housemaid in North America, landing in second place behind only Avatar: Fire and Ash.
Released on over 3 000 screens, David grossed $22 million (R353-million) at the weekend domestic box office. This is the biggest three-day opening in Angel Studios’ history, surpassing even Sound of Freedom, which went on to gross over $250 million (R4.1-billion) globally.
This is the highest-grossing opening weekend ever in the US for a faith-based animated film — besting both Angel’s own The King of Kings and the Oscar-winning The Prince of Egypt. This was also the best opening for a South African film in North America since District 9 in 2009.
Four weeks later, David remains in the US top 10, having grossed over $75m (R1.2-billion) in America alone. This puts the film at number 35 on Box Office Mojo’s roundup of the highest-grossing films of 2025 in American cinemas, and inside the top 10 for animation films, even before it completes its run.
Phil Cunningham and Brent Dawes directed the musical epic. Both were born in Zimbabwe and are now based in Cape Town. They led over 400 local and international artists and crew, both in-house at Sunrise’s studio in Noordhoek and working remotely across 32 countries.