The box office battle between Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Mufasa has been a yo-yo back-and-forth all through the holiday period.
The weekend box office race is almost too close to call. While Sonic the Hedgehog 3’s dominance over Disney’s Lion King prequel Mufasa, raised some eyebrows last weekend, the latter has proven to be unexpectedly resilient at the box office. While earlier this week we predicted that Mufasa would make over $70 million for the five-day holiday, the business has cooled a bit with Sonic 3 re-gaining some ground this weekend. Currently, Comscore has Sonic narrowly outgrossing Mufasa, with $38 million to the latter’s $37.1 million. However, considering the five-day holiday, Mufasa is the clear winner, having made a strong $63.7 million to Sonic’s $59.9 million. At this rate, both movies seem sure to cross the $200-250 million mark at the domestic box office, although in the case of Mufasa, it will be but a fraction of the $600 million plus its 2019 predecessor made.
Number 3 goes to Nosferatu, which proved to be a major hit over the holidays, with an excellent $21.15 million weekend and a superb $40 million cume to date. That’s a fantastic number for an R-rated period horror flick, making it Robert Eggers’s biggest box office hit to date and a clever piece of counter-programming for Focus. Wicked wasn’t too far behind, with it earning $19.4 million over the weekend, with over $31 million. For the holiday, adding to an impressive $424 million total gross. One wonders why Universal is putting it out on PVOD on New Year’s Eve, considering how well the theatrical run is going (that said – we had a GREAT time at the home video launch event – as you can see HERE).
Disney’s Moana 2 also continued to do well, with it adding another $18.2 million to its $394 million gross – it should pass $400 million by New Year’s Day. Another piece of counter-programming, A Complete Unknown, also did solid business. While the $11.6 million weekend gross is nothing to write home about, it made $23 million over the five-day holiday and has a chance to break out this week as most people will be on holiday the entire week. With an A-CinemaScore, the hope is word-of-mouth will propel this one to solid business, as happened with star Timothee Chalamet’s Wonka last Christmas. Even still, it’s Searchlight’s highest opener since being bought out by Disney in 2019.
A24’s Babygirl wasn’t able to attract much of an adult audience, earning a weak $4.3 million over the weekend for a $7 million-plus total. Gladiator II, despite now being on PVOD, did decent business over the holiday, with $4.1 million added to its $163 million total. Angel Studio’s Homestead made $3 million, with a cume in the $12 million range, which isn’t bad if you consider it a glorified TV pilot for a streaming series. In fact, there’s a very real chance Homestead‘s final box office tally won’t be too far from that of Kraven the Hunter, which dropped out of the top 10 this weekend. The Fire Inside rounded out the top 10 with a poor $2 million weekend, despite the A-CinemaScore.
With the holidays ongoing, what do you plan on seeing this week? Let us know in the comments!
