Things are not looking good for Disney’s “Mufasa.” The film earned just $3M on Thursday. The Barry Jenkins directed prequel will likely have strong walkups over the weekend, but current projections have it opening in the $35M+ range.
In comparison, Jon Favreau’s “The Lion King” remake, released in 2019, had a whopping $23M in Thursday previews. It went on to have a $191M debut weekend. At this point, Disney must be hoping “Mufasa” has the kind of legs during Christmas break to turn it into a hit, but reactions just haven’t been good enough for the film.
It should be noted that Jenkins recently hinted that “Mufasa” might have cost around $250M. Add in the hefty marking costs, and you have a film that’ll need a $500M worldwide gross to break even. Disney must be counting their lucky stars that they turned ‘Moana 2’ into a movie.
In case you’re wondering, “Sonic the Hedgehog 3” posted $6.5M last night in previews — that’s the official numbers from Paramount — and it’ll easily finish at #1 this weekend. ‘Sonic 3’ is also well ahead of Sonic 2's $5M. Meanwhile, “Wicked 2” only had a -20% drop in comparison to last Thursday’s numbers, it’s going to have a healthy fourth weekend at the box-office.
I actually find that number optimistic. Tickets for “Digger” go on sale next Tuesday, and presales will give us a better picture of how bad it’s looking.