The good news that multiple films enjoyed at the end of 2024 continued at the start of 2025, as Disney’s “Mufasa” extended its Christmas rebound to claim the No. 1 spot for the year’s first weekend.
In its third weekend in theaters, the “Lion King” prequel is earning an estimated $24 million, bringing its domestic total to $168 million as it will cross $400 million in global grosses this weekend. After suffering a poor $35 million pre-Christmas weekend opening, “Mufasa” has won over family audiences and is getting the legs it needs to turn a modest theatrical profit.
Paramount’s “Sonic the Hedgehog 3” sits just behind with $20.7 million, but even if the Sega threequel cedes No. 1 this weekend, it has reached a key milestone as “Sonic” now has $1 billion in lifetime theatrical grosses across its three films.
In addition, with an estimated $187.6 million grossed in North America, “Sonic 3” should pass the $190.8 million domestic run of “Sonic the Hedgehog 2” on Monday and then pass its $405.4 million global total by next weekend to become the highest grossing film in the series.
In third is Focus Features’ “Nosferatu,” which continues its remarkable run with horror fans with a $13.1 million second weekend that is just 39% down from its $21.6 million 3-day opening. With an estimated $69.3 million after two weekends, Robert Eggers’ remake of F.W. Murnau’s foundational 1922 horror film is already among the top 10 highest grossing films ever for Focus after inflation adjustment.
November holdovers “Wicked” and “Moana 2” complete the top 5, with “Moana 2” in fourth and just behind “Nosferatu” with $12.6 million to bring its domestic total to $425 million.
“Wicked,” which was released on premium on-demand by Universal earlier this weekend, earned $10.2 million in its seventh weekend to bring its domestic total to $450 million. It is only the second time in its run, after post-Thanksgiving weekend, that it has had a weekend drop of more than 40%.
Universal commonly releases its films on PVOD after a maximum of five weekends of theatrical exclusivity, though it gave “Wicked” an extra weekend of exclusive play to take advantage of Christmas.
Insiders at Universal say that since adopting this PVOD windowing model in 2021, they have found that the availability of films as a $30 digital rental has had a minimal impact on box office grosses as those who take advantage of the home platform usually do not go out to see the film in theaters, as evidenced by the long post-PVOD release of DreamWorks’ “The Wild Robot” this past fall. But the larger-than-usual drop for “Wicked” may suggest that fans of the musical who saw the film in theaters and boosted its legs with repeat viewings may be turning to PVOD to get their fix of Elphaba and Glinda.
Outside the top five is Searchlight’s “A Complete Unknown” with an estimated second weekend of $8.3 million and a two-weekend total of just under $42 million. At that number, it is already the highest grossing film for Searchlight since its acquisition by Disney in 2019, though it still has a way to go before it breaks even against its reported $70 million budget.
