Box Office: ‘Sonic 3’ Speeds to $60 Million Debut, ‘Mufasa: The Lion King’ Gets Trampled With $35 Million
UPDATED: “Sonic the Hedgehog 3” has powered to the top of box office charts while “Mufasa: The Lion King” is getting trampled in its first weekend of release.
Paramount’s third “Sonic” adventure has opened at No. 1 with $60 million from 3,761 North American theaters. Monday’s final number was below Sunday’s estimate of $62 million. Bolstered by positive reviews and strong audience scores, though, the film still landed on the higher end of initial expectations of $55 million to $60 million and looks to remain a holiday hit through the new year. “Sonic the Hedgehog 3” was tracking for a trilogy-low start but instead opened above the original 2020 “Sonic the Hedgehog” ($58 million in February) and just below the 2022 sequel (a series-best $72 million in March).
More from Variety
“As we’ve seen this franchise’s audience grow, we saw a window in the marketplace in December where we thought we could stand out,” says Paramount’s president of domestic distribution Chris Aronson. “We’ve been able to accomplish that. ‘Sonic’ is going to dominate through the holidays.”
Disney’s “The Lion King” prequel “Mufasa” trotted behind in second place with $35 million from 4,100 cinemas, falling way behind pre-release expectations of $50 million. It’s a terrible start for a tentpole that cost above $200 million to produce and roughly $100 million to promote across the globe. Despite mixed reviews, the film has several potential saving graces, including a solid “A-” grade on CinemaScore from audiences and the reality that December releases aren’t known to deliver robust debuts. But, if word-of-mouth is favorable, the film can enjoy staying power into January and beyond. (That was true of last year’s Timothee Chalamet-led prequel “Wonka,” for example, which notched $39 million to start and tapped out with $218 million in North America and $634 million worldwide.) “Mufasa” has a better chance of breaking out overseas, although the family friendly film also missed projections at the international box office, earning $87.2 million for a global start of $122.2 million.
“Sonic the Hedgehog 3,” which cost $122 million, doesn’t open at the international box office until Christmas. Jeff Fowler returned to direct the threequel, with Ben Schwartz back to voice the title character, a speedy blue creature with a knack for busting baddies, and Jim Carrey reprising his role as Sonic’s foe Doctor Robotnik, a mad scientist obsessed with achieving world domination. The story picks up with Sonic and pals Tails and Knuckles on a mission to stop a mysterious new adversary, Shadow the Hedgehog. The film landed an “A” grade on CinemaScore and an 86% average on Rotten Tomatoes.
“Sonic” has cemented itself as a promising new film franchise for Paramount, with the first two movies generating a combined $725 million at the global box office while driving more than $180 million in consumer spending from home entertainment rentals and digital purchases. The property, based on the popular Sega video game series, also inspired a Paramount+ spinoff series, “Knuckles,” which debuted earlier this year. Meanwhile, a fourth movie is already in development for 2027.
“Over the last five years, ‘Sonic’ has grown into a coveted five-quadrant movie: its audience includes younger and older females, younger and old males, and families,” says David A. Gross, who runs the movie consulting firm Franchise Entertainment Research. “The series is doing everything right.”
“Mufasa” could rebound over the holidays, or it may be the latest indication that audiences are tiring of Disney’s live-action adaptations of animated classics. Retreads of “Jungle Book,” “The Lion King,” “Beauty and the Beast” and “Aladdin” were huge commercial hits while “Mulan,” “Dumbo” and “The Little Mermaid” either faltered or fell short of expectations in theaters. Disney has two more remakes set for 2025, “Snow White” in March and “Lilo & Stitch” in May, as well as live-action takes on “Moana” and “Tangled” in the works.
Barry Jenkins, the Oscar-winning filmmaker of “Moonlight” and “If Beale Street Could Talk,” helmed “Mufasa,” which features music by Lin-Manuel Miranda and the voice cast of Aaron Pierre and Kelvin Harrison Jr. as Mufasa and Scar, Donald Glover, Seth Rogen, Billy Eichner, Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, Mads Mikkelsen and Blue Ivy Carter. It serves as a prequel to director Jon Favreau’s 2019 photorealistic “The Lion King” remake, which also garnered mixed reviews but delivered a stunning $191 million debut over the summer and eventually generated a mighty $1.66 billion at the global box office.
“Audiences like the movie, and family animation has shown excellent holding strength this year,” says Gross. “This story is not finished yet. This a prequel story, and prequels start slower.”
Movie theater owners hope that’s the case because overall domestic ticket sales remain 4.3% behind 2023 and 23% behind 2019, according to Comscore. Christmas season is looking less festive than usual with adult-skewing offerings like Searchlight’s Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown,” the Focus Features “Nosferatu” remake and A24’s erotic thriller “Babygirl” as the only newcomers on the calendar for Dec. 25. Exhibitors usually rely on all-audience fare such as “Avatar: The Way of Water” or “Spider-Man: No Way Home” to keep multiplexes packed through some of the busiest moviegoing days of the year.
This year, most of those four-quadrant films — including Universal’s “Wicked,” Disney’s “Moana 2” and Paramount’s “Gladiator II” — were released around Thanksgiving. All three look to keep drawing audiences through Christmas time.
“Wicked” floated to third place with $13.5 million from 3,296 venues. The big-budget movie musical has generated $383.91 million domestically and $571 million globally after five weekends of release. It landed ever-so-slightly ahead of “Moana 2,” which added $13.1 million from 3,600 theaters in its fourth weekend on the big screen. The Polynesian animated adventure has grossed $359 million in North America and a mammoth $790 million worldwide to date. It’s poised to become Disney’s third movie to cross $1 billion this year.
“Gladiator II” dropped to No. 6 with $4.45 million from 2,397 cinemas, bringing its domestic tally to $153 million. Ridley Scott’s 25-years-in-the-making follow-up to “Gladiator” has grossed $416.2 million at the global box office, which is great for cinema operators but less so for Paramount, considering the sword-and-sandal sequel carries a hefty $250 million price tag.
Elsewhere, Sony’s “Kraven the Hunter,” a superhero spinoff starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Spider-Man’s notorious foe, tumbled to seventh place with $3.1 million in its second weekend of release, declining a tragic 72% from its already-rough $11 million debut. So far, the $110 million budgeted-film has amassed just $17.4 million domestically and $42 million globally.
In limited release, A24’s historical epic “The Brutalist” opened with $266,791 from four screens — translating to a solid $66,698 per location. According to the indie studio, the majority of inaugural audiences were under 35 years old while almost half of them heard about the Oscar hopeful through Letterboxd, a social media platform where users rate, review and discuss all things cinema. Brady Corbet directed the three-hour-30-minute film (which includes an intermission), which will remain in select theaters in New York and Los Angeles before expanding nationwide in January.
Best of Variety
Sign up for Variety's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.