Sonic 3’ Speeds to $70.5 Million Opening; ‘Mufasa’ Faces Box Office Peril With $35 Million Start

Disney's "Mufasa" is left looking to the overseas box office and the extended holiday season for a rebound after a weak start, while Paramount's "Sonic the Hedgehog 3" is well on its way to becoming the most successful installment of the video game film series. These two newcomers to the pre-Christmas box office have quite different perspectives.

With $70.5 million from 3,761 theaters after earning $25.7 million on opening day, "Sonic 3" is starting slightly below the $72.1 million domestic start that "Sonic the Hedgehog 2" earned in April 2022. With an A on CinemaScore and Rotten Tomatoes scores of 85% critics and 98% audience, it is also receiving the best reviews of the series from both critics and die-hard Sonic fans.

46% of the opening weekend crowd for "Sonic 2" was between the ages of 18 and 35, and 32% was under the age of 17. This suggests that the film's initial audience was slightly more gamers than the families who later attended over the Easter break. Similar trends are indicated by early PostTrak polls for "Sonic 3," which had 34% of its opening day audience come from families.

"Sonic 3" has every reason to be the first "Sonic" movie to reach $200 million domestically and $500 million globally, and with kids off school for the next two weeks and fans raving about Shadow the Hedgehog's big-screen debut, it has a good chance of having a better second weekend drop than the 59% recorded by its predecessor.

Despite having a larger screen count of 4,100 screens, including Imax support, "Mufasa" is pacing towards a $35 million start, far below its lower projections of a $50 million opening. The unadjusted $36.9 million opening of Disney's "Maleficent: Mistress of Evil" in October 2019 is comparable to this one.

Families are anticipated to begin on Christmas Day.

It wasn't anticipated that "Mufasa" would contend for the top spot because families weren't expected to start going to the theater in large numbers until Christmas Day, there wasn't much buzz about the film overall in comparison to "Sonic 3," and the reviews were mediocre, with a 57% Rotten Tomatoes score.

However, any way you look at it, a domestic opening of less than $40 million for a movie with a reported $200 million production budget is a poor start.

The Pride Lands prequel can still salvage a respectable final total in two ways. The big-screen spectacle of the photorealistic computer-generated imagery, which critics generally considered to be improved under the direction of Barry Jenkins, has the potential for wider global appeal than "Sonic 3," which is based on a video game series whose popularity varies depending on region, even though overseas grosses are expected to fall far short of the $1.1 billion of the "Lion King" remake.

Additionally, domestically, "Mufasa" will have to establish itself with families despite competition, including Disney's

Regardless of the competition, including Disney's own "Moana 2," which is still making $13 million in its fourth weekend, "Mufasa" will need to establish its own appeal with families on the home front.

Even though "Sonic 3" received a better opening night reception, "Mufasa" still received an 88% RT audience score and an A- on CinemaScore. Although it did so in a much less competitive end-of-year market, "Wonka" received the same grade last year for turning a very unimpressive $39 million opening into a $218 million domestic run.