Paramount/Original Film’s “Sonic the Hedgehog 3” has taken the No. 1 spot at the pre-Christmas box office over Disney’s “Mufasa” by a much wider margin than projected, earning an estimated $62 million opening from 3,761 locations compared to $35 million from 4,100 locations for the “Lion King” prequel.
The third installment of the Sega video game adaptation series slid slightly away from Saturday estimates that put it closer to the $72.1 million opening of “Sonic the Hedgehog 2” in April 2022, but is still in the $60 million range projected by pre-release tracking.
More importantly, “Sonic 3” is enjoying the strongest reception scores of any film in the series with Rotten Tomatoes scores of 86% critics and 98% audience and an A on CinemaScore. Past “Sonic” films have relied primarily on hardcore fans of the series on opening weekend before turning to families for its legs, and with this buzz surrounding the threequel during the holidays, it should be able to leg out past the $190 million domestic/$405 million global total of “Sonic 2” quite easily.
“Mufasa,” meanwhile, could also leg out to a respectable final total against its reported $200 million budget, but this $35 million start that’s on par with the October 2019 opening of “Maleficent: Mistress of Evil” is putting it in a far deeper hole than expected.
Announced in September 2020 as a prequel to the $1.65 billion-grossing 2019 remake of “The Lion King,” “Mufasa” has the disadvantage of not having the familiar story and songs that made its predecessor and other Disney remakes such big draws in the late 2010s.
Combine that with mixed reviews to the tune of 57% on Rotten Tomatoes and years of online antipathy to the “Lion King” remake, and “Mufasa” is left struggling to build interest among general audiences.
But like “Sonic 3,” there’s still a lot of family playtime that “Mufasa” can take advantage of over the next two weeks. The film also has been well received by opening weekend audiences with an 89% RT audience score, an A- on CinemaScore and 5/5 from parents and kids on PostTrak.
“Mufasa” will also get some help from overseas markets, grossing $87 million internationally for a $122 million global launch. While that’s below $130 million projections, the film should have a better foothold in Asia and some other overseas markets than “Sonic 3,” contributing to the film’s legs.
November’s chart-toppers, “Moana 2” and “Wicked,” are next in a narrow race for third place. The Universal musical currently has the edge with $13.5 million in its fourth weekend, bringing its domestic total to $383 million. “Moana 2” is just behind with $13.1 million, bringing its total to $359 million domestic and $790 million worldwide.
More to come…
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