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Movie Monday: ‘Mufasa’ Takes Box Office Throne

It’s good to be the king.

After two weekends playing second fiddle to a blue hedgehog, Mufasa: The Lion King clawed his way to the top of the box-office heap. Disney’s Lion King prequel earned an estimated $23.8 million in North America and thus became 2025’s first No. 1 film.

Mufasa has earned $168.6 million in its domestic run so far. And it’s doing even better overseas, where it’s racked up and additional $307.8 million. That boosts its overall take to a very kingly $476.4 million—which’ll only encourage Disney to make more Lion King-adjacent films. (My bet: An origin story for Timon and Pumbaa. Maybe a gritty buddy-cop sorta thing.)

But while Sonic the Hedgehog 3 fell, it didn’t fall far. We find the film at No. 2, having earned $21.2 million domestically over the weekend. That pushes its own North American tally to $187.5 million. Not a bad way to, ahem, ring in the new year.

The weekend proved to be a pretty family-centric at the box office, too, with four of the top five films rated PG. The one outlier? Nosferatu, which crawled into third place with $13.2 million. The artsy horror flick has now sucked up $69.4 million in North America, and $100.4 million worldwide.

Moana 2 landed in fourth place with $12.4 million. It has now sailed to $425.2 million domestically. And as we’ve seen the past several weeks, where Moana 2 is, Wicked: Part 1 is sure to be nearby. Wicked landed in fifth place and cackled its way to $10.2 million. Its own overall domestic tally stands at $450.8 million. Elphaba might be looking at the $500 million mark and saying, “I’ll get you, my pretty! And your little Oscar, too!”

The only newcomer of note proved to be The Damned, which sailed to $801,000 and landed, unluckily, into 13th place.  

paul-asay
Paul Asay

Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.

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