Weekend projections: Sonic rushes past Lion King for emphatic weekend win

Disney’s plan to cap a stellar year with another box office triumph has run into a wall this weekend, with Mufasa: The Lion King being completely outpaced by Sonic the Hedgehog 3. Both films are coming in a little behind our Friday-morning predictions, but the basic story remains the same: this is a great opening for Sonic and Mufasa is a major disappointment.

Here’s how the weekend numbers look as of Sunday morning (click on the image for the full chart of films reporting so far)…

Sonic’s opening compares to $72.1 million for the second film in the franchise and $58 million for 2020’s original installment. That’s a remarkable level of consistency for any franchise. Reviews and the audience response for the new release are great—it’s largely said to be the best film in the franchise to date—and a solid run through the Holidays is assured.

With Christmas Day and New Years Day falling on a Wednesday this time around, almost every day will feel like a holiday for the next couple of weeks. The last time the dates lined up like this was 2019, when Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker debuted with $177 million. That film more than doubled its total box office by the end of the year, and finished with $515 million. A similar performance for Sonic would get it to around $140 million by close of business on December 31, and a final domestic total of about $180 million. The other major film to open on December 20, 2019 was Cats, which, believe it or not, had better legs than Star Wars through the Holidays, tripling its opening weekend by the end of the year and finishing with a little four times its opening weekend in total. A performance like that would take Sonic to $180 million by year end, and $240 million in total. The bottom line is that there’s still quite a bit of uncertainty around where Sonic will land, but it could well be the highest-grossing movie in the franchise by the end of its run (Sonic 2 ended with $190.9 million).

Wicked will almost certainly overtake Moana 2 this weekend (their studio projections are very close but the numbers we’re seeing give Wicked a clear edge). That almost certainly gives the final answer to which film will end up as the number three film in theaters this year: Wicked will end the weekend more than $24 million ahead of Moana and looks set to beat it consistently through the Holidays.

The other notable new release this weekend is The Brutalist, which is expected to pick up about $267,000 from just four theaters. That’ll be the third-highest theater average of the year behind Anora and Kinds of Kindness, and confirm it as a serious Oscar challenger.

– Studio weekend projections

– All-time top-grossing movies in North America

– All-time top-grossing movies worldwide

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Bruce Nash, bruce.nash@the-numbers.com