‘Sonic the Hedgehog 3’ and ‘Mufasa’ Headline Big Weekend & Holiday Box Office Update

The dust has settled on the final box office battle of 2024 between Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Mufasa. While there was a clear and correctly predicted winner, the impact of the holiday season, especially for two family-oriented films was apparent.

Sonic Continued to Dominate on Monday

The weekend may be over, but the battle is still raging. With schools out for Christmas, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Mufasa continued their box office scuffle on Monday. And just like over the weekend, the Blue Blur came out on top – although this time the numbers were surprisingly close.

Sonic the Hedgehog 3, despite landing at an underwhelming $60 million for te weekend, pulled an impressive $9 million on Monday. It’s running cume now stands at $69 million, and it’s legs look healthy for the long holiday as 2024 comes to an end. That means that even though it didn’t breath Sonic 2 for the franchise’s biggest opening weekend, it still has a very real chance to have a larger final box office number.

Things are also looking up for Mufasa, even though the prequel has a long way to go before climbing out of the elephant graveyard. Taking in $7 million on Monday, the lion who would be king has pushed his box office over $40 million so far.

Sonic the Hedgehog 3’s Intriguing Box Office Weekend

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 came in with a projection of around $60 to $70 million on the domestic release front. Initially, Jeff Fowler’s third installment came in a bit low across the weekend at just a hair over 60 million domestic. An initial theory behind the slower weekend came in the percentage of families hitting the theaters this weekend, with Deadline pointing out a 13-percent discrepancy between Sonic 3 and Sonic 2’s percentage of families going to theaters on opening weekend (46% for Sonic 3 versus 59% for Sonic 2).

This is where the time of the year becomes a big talking point. With most major holiday celebrations coming this week, it is reasonable to assume many families across the country were likely traveling for/already on a holiday vacation making it less likely for the demographic to visit a movie theater. However, there are two sides to the holiday break coin, displayed perfectly by the post-weekend box office numbers. Considering most if not all K-12 schools and colleges are on break this week, theaters saw a holiday uptick in visitors, with Sonic the Hedgehog 3 specifically having a strong Monday.

With a peak Sunday of $15.3 million and a five-day Christmas Wednesday to Saturday projection of an additional $50 million, it is safe to say the blue ball speedster won the holiday window at the box office as predicted.

Mufasa’s Disappointing Showing

While the experts correctly predicted Mufasa would lose the weekend race to Sonic the Hedgehog 3, few if any saw this bad of a performance. The Lion King prequel ended with a $35.4 million opening, landing around fifteen million under experts’ projections. It was always going to be difficult for Mufasa to even attempt to match The Lion King’s $191 million opening weekend, but it is hard to sum up this addition to a Disney classic as anything else besides a disappointment.

The Barry Jenkins-directed film ended its opening weekend run with a peak of $10.2 million on Sunday alongside a five-day holiday projection of $40-$45 million. Poor reviews combined with a fierce competitor in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 made for a tough stretch for Mufasa and Disney.

Another notable Disney-backed project still surging at the box office over the upcoming Christmas window, Moana 2, raked in around $20-$22 million over the five-day window. Blockbuster Broadway-to-silver-screen adaptation Wicked generated an additional $14.1 million during its fifth weekend in theaters as reported by Deadline, bringing Wicked’s grand total up to nearly $390 million, the biggest total for any movie under the genre.