Lions have done pretty well for themselves this young year at the multiplex. In two of 2025’s first four weekends, Mufasa: The Lion King has reigned supreme at the box office. The other two? Movies from Lionsgate have taken the trophy.
Flight Risk became the second offering from Lionsgate’s studio to land at No. 1 this year. (The other one, by the way, was Den of Thieves 2: Pantera.) It was hardly a sky-high debut: The Mark Wahlberg film earned just an estimated $12 million in North America. But during a slow weekend, it was enough to gain cruising altitude and fly right past Mufasa.
The Lion King prequel is still very much in the box-office conversation, though. Mufasa finished second with $8.7 million, which brings its overall domestic tally to $221.1 million. Add in the $405.6 million the film has earned overseas, and Mufasa has pocketed a very royal $626.7 million.
A bevy of new films entered the box-office scrum this week. But outside Flight Risk, the weekend’s top five looks pretty familiar. One of Them Days earned $8 million and slipped from second place to third. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 coasted into fourth place with $5.5 million. And Moana 2 continued its nine-weekend run in the top five with a $4.3 million, fifth-place finish.
Newcomer Presence earned $3.4 million to finish just outside the top five, in sixth. Brave the Dark—a Christian-adjacent film made by Angel Studios—earned $2.6 million to finish 11th. The Colors Within, an anime offering from GKIDs, landed in 16th place with $378,000. And I was apparently one of the only people to see Inheritance, which earned just $132,000 for a (gulp) 26th-place finish.
2 Responses
I refuse to give more money to Mel Gibson (I already wrestled enough with doing so for “Hacksaw Ridge,” a decade ago when that movie was new) and don’t know why Hollywood hasn’t totally blacklisted him yet. I hope his ex-wife is doing well. Even his former mistress accused him of domestic violence (he himself has recorded audio of making threats to do so, and you can freely listen to them online) and at one point had a restraining order against him.
I think that’s a valid position to take, but I try not to deprive myself of good entertainment just because someone involved in it does something awful. It’s such a slippery slope, and where does one draw the line? I wouldn’t want to boycott Saving Private Ryan because Tom Sizemore played a supporting role. And if I did, I CERTAINLY wouldn’t want to pressure other people to join me.
Great art often tends to come from troubled people. I think about that whenever I listen to a pre-Pablo Kanye album or read an Alice Munro story.