It was yet another major showdown of the blockbusters at the box office this past weekend, as Paramount’s “Sonic the Hedgehog 3” went toe-to-toe with Disney’s big prequel “Mufasa: The Lion King.” Not that the third entry in a successful franchise should necessarily be considered a full-fledged underdog here, but for various reasons, it might have seemed like “Mufasa” had the edge here. That’s now how things played out, though.
Instead, director Jeff Fowler’s “Sonic 3” triumphed with an estimated $62 million domestic opening weekend, which was good enough for the number one spot and essentially right in line with industry expectations for the “Sonic” threequel heading into the weekend. Meanwhile, Disney’s “Lion King” prequel, which hails from Oscar-winning director Barry Jenkins, didn’t fare nearly as well. It pulled in just $35 million, landing at number two on the charts. For context, 2019’s “The Lion King” opened to more than $190 million domestically before eventually amassing over $1.6 billion worldwide, becoming literally one of the highest-grossing movies of all time. Needless to say, we’re off to a slower start here.
“Sonic 3” doesn’t begin its international rollout until this week, but “Mufasa” did pull in $87.2 million overseas, which made it the number one movie worldwide this past weekend. Even so, a $122.2 million global start isn’t enough for a movie of this size and Disney is now going to have to rely on unusually long legs and a bigger than predicted turnout outside of the U.S. from this point on.
So, what went wrong with “Mufasa” here? How was “Sonic 3” able to triumph so handily in what should have been a much closer showdown? We’re going to look at the biggest reasons why this high-profile box office duel went down the way it did. Let’s get into it.