Battle at the Box Office 12/30/24
While it was closer than their battle last weekend, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 remained on the top of the box office over Mufasa: The Lion King over the Christmas box office period while Nosferatu counterprogrammed to great effect.
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 took in another $38 million for the weekend, dropping 37% from last weekend. The movie now has $137.5 million domestically for two weeks of release and $211.5 million worldwide. Sonic 3 is tracking well above the first two Sonic movies, and it’s looking like this will most likely be the highest-grossing movie in the series domestically and maybe worldwide. The franchise continues to grow with each entry, probably why Paramount immediately put Sonic the Hedgehog 4 into development last week.
Mufasa: The Lion King benefitted from the holiday box office but couldn’t top Sonic. The movie increased 4% in business from last weekend, making $36.8 million this past weekend and taking it to $113.1 million domestically and $327.6 million worldwide. It’s about $73 million below where The Little Mermaid remake was in the same period last year. That movie wrapped up just under $300 million domestically, so Mufasa will probably end up slightly above $200 million.
Nosferatu opened on Christmas Day last week and made $21.6 million for the weekend and $40.8 million total. A complete 180 from Mufasa and Sonic, the dark, violent gothic horror movie was the best opening ever for director Robert Eggers and the fourth best opening for Focus Features. Nosferatu’s weekend gross is in line with Longlegs and Smile 2 and ahead of Terrifier 3 as far as some of 2024’s horror hits.
Wicked and Moana 2 rounded out the top five, both seeing an increase in business of around 40% from last weekend. This was most likely due to the large number of kids and families going to the theaters over the holiday. Wicked now has $635.4 million worldwide, and Moana 2 has $883.1 million worldwide.
Two of the other Christmas releases opened outside the top 10, with A Complete Unknown opening in 6th place with $11.6 million for the weekend and $23.2 million total domestically, while Babygirl opened in 7th place with $4.3 million for the weekend and $7.2 million total domestically. The Fire Inside also opened on Christmas Day but barely reached the top 10, opening in 10th place with $1.9 million for the weekend and $4.2 million total. It felt like Amazon barely promoted the movie, and it will likely find its way to Prime Video sooner rather than later.
The Brutalist had the best per-Theater average, with $29,022 in each of the seven theaters it played over the weekend.