Despite respectable totals globally, Mufasa: The Lion King failed to meet expectations, and ranked behind a certain video game hedgehog at the Domestic box office.
What’s Happening:
- The newest film from Disney, Mufasa: The Lion King, took home the big numbers of the weekend leading the box office take globally, but fell short of projections domestically as reported by Variety.
- While ticket sales for The Lion King prequel took in $122 million globally, the film landed far under the expectations of a $180 million global take in its initial weekend.
- The same can be said of its domestic take, which landed the film in the #2 spot stateside earning just $35 million, falling behind Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog 3 which earned $62 million.
- Considering that the third Sonic film doesn’t open internationally until December 25th, it can be assumed the global take would have been different if Sonic were in play this weekend.
- For Mufasa internationally, China was the biggest take this weekend, bringing in $7.8 million followed by France with $7.7 million, Mexico with $7.1 million and the United Kingdom with $5.5 million.
- Best known for his Oscar best picture winner Moonlight, Barry Jenkens took the helm of Mufasa, a prequel/sequel that mostly takes place prior to Jon Favreau’s The Lion King, which delivered a mighty $1.66 billion at the global box office despite mixed reviews.
- Those mixed reviews also permeate those of Mufasa, which features the voice cast of Aaron Pierre and Kelvin Harrison Jr. as Mufasa and Scar, alongside Donald Glover, Seth Rogen, Billy Eichner, Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, Mads Mikkelsen and Blue Ivy Carter, with music by Lin-Manuel Miranda.
- Mufasa carries a budget reportedly above $200 million, so the film needs to pull in some more theatrical success through the new year.
- Disney would surely also like to have another smash under their belt and continue their hot streak that started back with the release of Pixar Animation Studio’s Inside Out 2, Marvel’s Deadpool & Wolverine, and Disney Animation’s Moana 2, the latter of which continues to earn big numbers, bringing in $32.8 million from 52 different territories over the weekend.
- Both Moana 2 and Mufasa still have other big contenders to deal with in the box office, including Universal’s Wicked and the aforementioned Sonic the Hedgehog 3.
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