Lion and land critter continued to go at like an episode of Mutual Omaha’s Wild Kingdom this weekend with each studio screaming that they’re No. 1. If you look at the standard 3-day weekend, it’s Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog 3 with $38M while Disney’s Mufasa is looking at an estimated $37M. However, on the five-day measure which saw The Lion King prequel rise from the dust on Christmas Day and Dec. 26 in its dailies, Mufasa takes the lead with $63.7M.
Saturday was a close call for both family movies with Sonic 3 seeing $13.5M, and Mufasa and an estimated $13.3M. However, it wasn’t a Christmas of cannibalization as there was room for four family movies, the Thanksgiving holdovers of Universal’s Wicked and Disney’s Moana 2. For all the concern that similar demo movies could eat each other up, here’s a scenario of all boats rise with the 3-day overall weekend at $161M, +43% over the near New Year’s Eve weekend of last year and 56% ahead of the same frame at the tail end of 2022 when Avatar: The Way of Water was soaking up most of the business in a deep freeze winter.
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