Like Mephiles the Dark, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 was an “alpha gamer” at the domestic box office this weekend. Audiences everyone rolled around at the speed of sound and followed their respective rainbows to multiplexes everywhere to the tune of a $62 million domestic bow. This cume was nearly in between the opening weekends of its two predecessors. That's the 15th biggest December domestic opening in history, narrowly ahead of The Lord of the Rings: The Towers and Jumanji: The Next Level's respective bows. It's also only the 16th December movie in history to open to $60+ million over its opening weekend.
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 also secured the third biggest opening weekend ever for a live-action video game movie. Only Five Nights at Freddy’s with its $80 million bow and Sonic the Hedgehog 2’s April 2022 premiere did better. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 secured such a tremendous opening weekend thanks to that new moody hedgehog Shadow. Adding in a beloved character was an instant way to get Sonic devotees interested in the feature. Even for folks who don’t know Cream the Rabbit from Storm the Swallow, though, the presence of “Sonic but evil”, not to mention two Jim Carrey’s, promised a distinctively different experience from Sonic 3’s predecessors.
How high does Sonic 3 go at the domestic box office now? Its day-to-day holds this weekend suggest the PG-rated Sonic 3 is playing like a typical PG-13 tentpole with slightly more family-friendly appeal. That means it’s, frankly, unlikely to do the kind of legs many PG-rated December titles do. It’s usually easy for these projects to do 3.5-six times their opening weekends. However, a 3.5 multiplier on this opening weekend would take Sonic the Hedgehog 3 past the $215 million mark domestically. That would still make this title one of the year’s biggest successes. That sort of haul would’ve been unthinkable for a live-action video game movie as late as six years ago. Who knew, in the days of Ugly Sonic, this saga would prove so resiliently lucrative?
In second place was the “beta cuck” to Sonic the Hedgehog 3’s “alpha gamer”, Mufasa: The Lion King. While the original Lion King remake in 2019 opened to $191 million, Mufasa only grossed $35 million. That’s a massive 81.5% decline from its predecessor's debut. Even considering that December movies always have smaller openings than July features, this is still a poor showing. Mufasa couldn’t even score the biggest December opening weekend for an animated movie! Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Versen ($35.36 million) and Sing ($35.25 million) narrowly edged out this considerably more expensive prequel.
Now, the aforementioned trend of family-friendly movies holding well in December should bode well for Mufasa, no question. There are already reports that its advanced ticket sales skew heavily towards December 25 and beyond. Heck, Disney is even holding screening events (like my local AMC’s screening offering patrons a free lion ears hairband) on days like December 26, not the opening weekend. However, Mufasa’s going to need Puss in Boots: The Last Wish-level legs to prove profitable, especially since its international numbers were also underwhelming this frame. Heck, it’s unlikely Mufasa, even in the most ideal box office path forward, has a lifetime gross remotely close to its predecessor's gargantuan $191 million opening weekend.
Disney may have been on a box office upswing in 2024, but even the rejuvenated Mouse House couldn’t ignore a truth: people don’t care about these sequels to modern Disney Animation remakes. Alice Through the Looking Glass and Maleficent: Mistress of Evil already demonstrated severe drop-offs from their box office hit predecessors. These remakes, like Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, or 2019’s Lion King, draw in people over the novelty of seeing familiar characters in new confines. None of these titles prove anywhere near beloved enough to inspire folks salivating for more follow-ups.
Mufasa: The Lion King continued this trend. 2019’s Lion King was one of the biggest movies of all-time and that still wasn’t enough to give this prequel a box office boost. It didn’t help that Mufasa was a prequel, a storytelling terrain notorious for generating lower box office returns. Expect solid legs for Mufasa over the next few weekends, but it’ll be nearly impossible for this title to break even theatrically. Hey, if Mufasa doesn’t break the bank in the weeks to come, can we please do that live-action remake of Tangled? Please?
Wicked dropped 40% this frame for a fifth weekend gross of $13.5 million and a $383.9 million domestic total. It'll be very interesting to see how this performs over the next week as it prepares to become only the second live-action musical in history to crack $400 million in North America. Wicked has also now surpassed Jurassic World Dominion's $376.85 million domestic haul to become Universal's seventh-biggest movie in history. This was also the first weekend frame where Wicked out grossed Moana 2. The latter title continued to have much sharper than usual drop-offs for a Thanksgiving Disney Animation title, falling 51% this weekend to gross another $13.1 million.
For comparison’s sake, Encanto dipped 35% over the pre-Christmas 2021 frame when Spider-Man: No Way Home opened to record-shattering numbers. In its fourth weekend, the first Moana dipped 31% against Rogue One. With $359 million domestically, Moana 2 is still enough of a moneymaker not to worry Disney executives, but it's clear this sequel has not inspired the kind of word-of-mouth many Thanksgiving Disney Animation releases effortlessly generate. Still, thanks to the holiday, Moana 2 should hit a $420+ million domestic total with ease.
Rounding out the top five, hey, Angel Studios finally got something approaching a 2024 hit (just in the nick of time too) this frame with Homestead. Opening to $6.06 million from 1,886 theaters, that's a solid bow for a film that will be able to leg out over the next 11 days of holiday weekdays. If it doesn’t plummet off a cliff, it should become only the second Angel Studios release ever to clear $20 million. Channeling some Yellowstone energy and dystopic paranoia served Homestead well.
In sixth place was Gladiator II, which eased 42% to gross another $4.45 million for a $153.93 million domestic total. A $170-180 million final domestic haul is in the cards for this smash hit sequel. Kraven the Hunter failed to recover from its dismal opening weekend with a second frame gross of $3.1 million. That 72% drop gave it a $965 per-theater average this frame, a dismal sum for a big-budget Marvel adaptation in only its second weekend of release. Kraven has only grossed $17.4 million after ten days of release and it will struggle to reach $30 million domestically.
Red One, facing competition from two new family movies, fell 66% this frame to gross another $1.4 million for a $95.4 million domestic total. Only $4.6 million to go until it hits the nine-digit mark in North America. The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim collapsed to the tune of 72% to gross just $1.2 million this frame. With only $7.3 million in the bank after ten days, it's debatable, even with Christmas yet to come, if this one can crack $10 million in its domestic run. Rounding out the top ten in its last weekend of relevancy was The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, which eased 36% to gross another $825,000 for a $38.45 million domestic total.
Queer fell 54% this weekend and grossed $364,240 from 379 theaters and a $961 per theater average. With $2.83 million domestically so far, Queer isn't a smash hit but it might end up one of 2024's biggest movies domestically to never reach wide release. a $266,791 opening weekend and a $66,698 per theater average from four locations. Only Anora and Kinds of Kindness had better limited-release opening weekend per theater averages. That's a much better opening weekend than A24's last challenging award season drama, The Zone of Interest. The Brutalist should be poised for a solid theatrical run, especially if it gets some big Oscar nominations come January.award-season
Flow, in its fifth weekend of release, grossed $234,700 from 199 locations for a $1,179 per theater average. It's now up to $1.78 million domestic total. Anora kept on chugging with $160,001, a 32% dip from last weekend, from 118 locations for a $1,356 per theater average. It's now up to $13.83 million. The Room Next Door opened this weekend with $107,400 from six locations for a $17,900 per theater average. Not tremendously exceptional, not bad either.
All We Imagine as Light actually improved on its last two weekends per theater averages this frame despite reaching its highest theater count to date. This Payal Kapadia movie grossed $66,800 at 37 locations for a $1,805 per theater average. Janus Films has taken the slow and steady approach to this arthouse title and it's paying off. Light has now grossed $524,055. Nickel Boys expanded into five locations and grossed $62,162 for a $12,432 per theater average. Always promising when limited-release titles have two consecutive weekends of $10,000+ per theater averages. This RaMell Ross masterpiece has now grossed $145,000 from ten days of domestic release.
Los Frikis bowed in two locations for a $36,300 opening weekend and an $18,150 per theater average. Also debuting this weekend was The Count of Monte Cristo, which only opened to $17,500 from four locations for a worrisome $4,325 per theater average. Finally, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, in its fourth weekend of release, eased 38% to gross another $16,250 from 10 locations for a $1,625 per theater average. Its domestic total now stands at $170,626.
The top ten movies this weekend grossed $148 million. That’s not a gargantuan record-shattering sum and noticeably behind the biggest pre-Christmas weekends of years past. 2017's big pre-Christmas frame reached $168 million, while December 2007's equivalent hit $152 million. At least 2024’s weekend sum left December 22-24, 2023’s haul of $85.8 million haul in the absolute dust. We’re still feeling the pain of a lack of new releases, this frame could’ve used a Greatest Showman or Anyone But You to further liven things up. While the pre-Christmas 2019 weekend had The Rise of Skywalker opening to $170+ million and Jumanji: The Next Level in its second robust weekend, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 had to carry the burden of would-be December tentpoles like Mufasa and Kraven coming in under expectations.
With four new wide releases dropping Wednesday and holdovers Sonic 3 and Wicked poised to keep chugging, though, that problem related to quantity could be rectified shortly. With just under $600 million domestically as of this writing, a $1+ billion domestic haul for December 2024 looks just out of reach. However, it’s clear December 2024 is already in a much healthier place compared to the last three December.
Believe it or not, since COVID-19 shut down theaters in March 2020, theaters have only had TWO three-day weekends with $150+ million domestic hauls. The December 17-19, 2021 frame when Spider-Man: No Way Home opened, and the December 16-18, 2022 frame when Avatar: The Way of Water debuted. Before COVID shut theaters down, the final weekends of a given year could reliably exceed $180-250 million. As late as 2019, the year capped off with $186 million. By contrast, December 2021 concluded with a meager $95.7 million sum. This Sonic the Hedgehog 3-led weekend wasn’t the biggest around, but it sure looked more like a pre-2020 Christmastime box office frame than most December 2024 or 2023 weekends. Let’s see if a horny vampire, a boxer, a horny CEO, and a twink Bob Dylan can put the December 2024 box office firmly on the nice list…