The box office battle between Mufasa and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is so close that either movie could top the weekend box office.
The battle between Mufasa: The Lion King and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 continues to be wildly unpredictable. In this week’s box office predictions, we assumed that Mufasa, which looked like it was tanking last weekend, would rally to a number-one finish. While that still seems like the most likely result, the difference in box office will only be around one million dollars or so. According to Deadline, it looks like Mufasa will eke out a win with a five-day haul of $61 million compared to Sonic’s $59 million. Yet, as for the weekend itself, Sonic looks like it will actually come out ahead of Mufasa with $37 million to the latter’s $35 million. That said, with the numbers so close, anything goes…
Nosferatu is proving to be a major success for Focus Features, with it aiming for a $20 million weekend and a $39 million five-day haul. Wicked looks like it’ll hit fifth place with an outstanding $32 million over five days, which is raising eyebrows as Universal’s sending the movie to PVOD on New Year’s Eve, despite the film still raking in big bucks in theaters. Moana 2 shouldn’t be too far behind with $27 million over the five day holiday. A Complete Unknown should strum its way to sixth place. While that doesn’t sound great, the holiday box office has been so good that the movie will likely make about $25 million over the five-day holiday. With an A-CinemaScore rating, word-of-mouth should be excellent. With another holiday weekend coming up, A Complete Unknown could end up scoring well north of $50 million by the end of the holidays, which would position it to turn a nice profit for Searchlight, who hasn’t had a breakout hit like this in years.
We’ll be back tomorrow with a full write-up of the weekend box office!
