Christmas Day Showdown Ends With One Movie Claiming the Crown at the Box Office

Christmas Day 2024 saw a diverse collection of movies clash at the box office – but there could only be one king, and it was a lion king! Disney’s prequel film Mufasa: The Lion King walked away with the box office crown, earning $14.7 million on Christmas. The second-place win went to the highly-anticipated horror movie Nosferatu, which showed a strong opening of $11.5M in its first day of release. At no. 3 was Sonic 3, with the video game movie threequel pulling in $10.3 million. Another awards season hopeful, the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unkown (starring Dune’s Timothée Chalamet in the titular role) slid in at no. 4 with a $7.2M – including a respective $1.4M from Christmas Eve preview showings. Finishing out the top 5 was Wicked with $5.4M, which only underscores that film’s monumental run, securing Top 5 box office spots during both the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays this year.

Mufasa winning the Christmas Day box office is a nice feather in Disney’s cap. Sonic 3 came out of the gate fast when both films opened just before Christmas (December 20th), but The Lion King prequel chased it down fast heading into the holiday; with this Christmas box office win, Mufasa is on pace to earn $200M globally in the next few days (equaling its budget), while Sonic 3 is pushing towards $90M (still short of its $155M budget). So far, it’s speculated that both kids/family-friendly kid films could show solid holdover as the Christmas holiday moves into New Year’s.

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While Nosferatu carries a modest budget (for a horror film) of $ 40M-50M, Focus Features/Universal is certainly looking at director Robert Eggers’ vampire movie remake as an awards season contender, rather than a box office draw. If word-of-mouth proves strong, Nosferatu could end up being both. Other awards season hopefuls – including Nicole Kidman’s erotic-thriller Babygirl, and boxer Claressa “T-Rex” Shields’ biopic The Fire Inside both opened to $1.5M and $1.7M respectively; Adrian Brody’s lengthy period piece drama The Brutalist took in around $75K.

What Is Mufasa: The Lion King About?

After a terrible flood separates the young lion Mufasa from his parents, his life is saved by another lion cub named Taka. Mufasa and Taka grow up like brothers – but years later, when the lions are almost adults, another group of dangerous lions threatens the pride’s existence, and Mufasa and Taka must go on the run together. There they encounter both new allies and many dangers, and their loyalty to each other is put to the test. For who among them is truly destined to reign as the Lion King – and at what cost?

Mufasa‘s cast includes stars reprising their roles from the 2019 Lion King live-action remake. That includes Donald Glover, Seth Rogen, Billy Eichner, John Kani, and Beyoncé as Simba, Pumbaa, Timon, Rafiki, and Nala (respectively). New cast members include Aaron Pierre (Lanterns) as young Mufasa, Kelvin Harrison Jr. as young Scar, Tiffany Boone as Sarabi, Mads Mikkelsen (Doctor Strange) as Kiros, Thandiwe Newton as Eshe, Lennie James as Obasi and Blue Ivy making her feature film debut as Kiara.

via Variety