Mufasa 23-24m
Sonic 20m
Nosferatu 12.3m
Moana 12m
Wicked 9.6m (clearly should not have gone to digital!)
Complete Unknown 7.5m

The drop for Wicked is quite disappointing. It seems unlikely to reach 500 million. Universal's decision to release it on demand so early was misguided. The physical release is set for early February, which is also too soon. Given the award nominations it's receiving, they should have postponed both digital and physical releases until March.

I didn't think it would hurt Wicked since it hasn't really affected movies too much in the past two years or so. Moana pulling back ahead of it is unexpected though. I guess musicals do rely on repeated viewings, and if you love the movie enough to see it in theaters multiple times then overpaying to get it on itunes a few weeks early won't be as big of a deal.

I also think it has maxed out its potential though. All the talk of "you will like it even if youre not into musicals" was fake news. I peaked in to it for a little bit and, while completely understanding why its crowd is so hot, knew that I couldn't do two and a half hours of it. It was just Way Too Much. I'll wait for a 90 minute animated version.

The fact it fell behind Moana and Nosferatu the day it dropped on streaming is obviously the only reason it dropped.

You have some weird hard on for sonic failing. You honestly think it's only going to have a 8% friday increase? It's looking good for 7-8.5 Friday.

Should be able to do 25-28 this weekend and beat Mustafa again.

That’s what deadline said dude not me.

You also said it will only make 230 and mustafa will beat it, despite being down over 22 million, is that all deadline too? And maybe use accreditation so you don’t pass someone else’s prediction off as your own in the future.

Omg chill out. This was clearly not a prediction thread.

I predicted that Mufasa would out gross Sonic after it significantly out grossed it 5 days in. It seemed like Sonic was falling off a cliff in comparison. And it is holding way worse. It hasn’t even done 3x its opening where as Mufasa had already done over 4x.

Mufasa is likely going to beat Sonic in the end, and honestly, that makes me happy. Initially, I rooted for Sonic because it's a Paramount production, and I'd prefer them to earn the revenue over Disney. However, after watching Sonic on opening weekend, my allegiance shifted to Mufasa. In hindsight, I wish I had chosen to see Mufasa instead of Sonic, as I can't imagine being as bored with Mufasa as I was with Sonic.

The Sonic stans on Twitter/X are incredibly annoying, which has only strengthened my support for Mufasa. Watching them cry and deny how well Mufasa is doing makes the days Mufasa is #1 very satisfying. Moreover, Mufasa's low opening weekend positioned it as an underdog, and I naturally gravitate towards underdogs. Witnessing a movie rebound from a slow start is genuinely enjoyable.

Ultimately, I don't root for any movie to fail because successful films benefit theaters. However, at this point, while I want both to do well, I genuinely want Mufasa to outperform Sonic. So yeah, here's hoping Mufasa is king of the Box Office this weekend.

These back and forths in the daily rankings between Moana / Wicked and Mufasa / Sonic have most importantly made the box office more interesting than it has been since D&W and the July box office almost 6 months ago, aside from Beetlejuice 2. The gap was narrowed for the year from 24% to 3% since May.

Mufasa is an interesting case study though on how managing expectations can frame box office runs. Mufasa is a prequel to a film that made $1.7B worldwide 5 years ago but opened to $35M. However, with the Dec. holidays its often a case of films saving face.

Joker really helped all the Q4 films by doing so badly right at the beginning of the quarter. It was like an asteroid hit the box office that no film OW wise no matter how underwhelming could come close to that level. A LOTR movie < $10M? A Marvel film <$25M so far? Still nothing compared to Joker.

Friday (From The Numbers):

1 Mufasa $7,600,000 -37% $152,364,931
2 Sonic 3 $6,900,000 -45% $173,207,876
3 Nosferatu $4,250,000 -42% $60,450,565
4 Moana 2 $4,100,000 -36% $416,855,483
5 Wicked $3,330,000 -51% $443,881,945

6 A Complete Unknown $2,600,000 -34% $36,229,667
7 Babygirl $1,473,684 +4% $13,094,184
8 Gladiator II $870,000 -36% $167,062,182
9 Homestead $613,119 -39% $15,984,699
10 The Fire Inside $379,661 -42% $6,278,630

-Kraven the Hunter $330,000 -36% $22,977,663
-The Brutalist $79,135 +26% $1,006,269

Babygirl is all over Tiktok so a 4% increase here and just $100K off from its biggest day so far is very impressive. I think it's got a chance at $30M+ now. That's now 18 days in the $0.8M-$1.6M range. A mini ABY.

Very weird Babygirl has a 50% audience score... guessing it's men who hated it that are making that score lol seems like WoM among its intended audience is good.

Here's where Moana ranks in top animation films:

1 Inside Out 2 $652,980,194 2024
2 Incredibles 2 $608,581,744 2018
3 Mario $574,934,330 2023
4 The Lion King $543,638,043 2019
5 Finding Dory $486,295,561 2016
6 Frozen II $477,373,578 2019
7 Shrek 2 $444,854,717 2004
8 Toy Story 4 $434,038,008 2019
9 The Lion King $424,979,720 1994
10 Moana 2 $416,855,483 2024

With Friday's #'s, Moana 2 sneaks into the top 10 animated films of all time past 2010's TS3. I'm counting TLK 2019 in here though it's been considered animated and non-animated. Will probably rise up to #7 but Frozen II looks like a stretch.

Honestly, I saw Babygirl on Wednesday, and I'm surprised it managed to get a B- CinemaScore. It had an odd vibe and wasn't as fun or sexy as it seemed from the trailers. It was my most anticipated movie of December, but I ended up feeling pretty underwhelmed. Nicole Kidman was amazing, though. My friends who went with me didn't really care for it either. I'd give it the same rating as its CinemaScore.

We also watched Nosferatu, which they preferred. For me, it was the opposite. Even though I was disappointed by Babygirl, I still thought it was better than Nosferatu. That one was also a letdown, and after seeing it, the B- CinemaScore is impressive. I wouldn't have expected more than a C+ for either film.

It's kind of mind-blowing that Nosferatu might make $100 million or more. I'm happy it's doing well, especially since it might lead to more horror movies opening on Christmas, but it's not exactly a mainstream crowd-pleaser. It's quite slow and pretty bleak.

I do love seeing Babygirl holding up so well. Similar to Saltburn and The Substance, TikTok is likely contributing to these strong holds. Unlike Saltburn and The Substance, it will face less competition for screens, which should help it leg out and potentially reach $30 million or at least $25 million.

Moana 2 would have smashed Frozen 2 if it had been as strong as the first film with a hit song.

Universal killing Wicked's hopes for $500m is quite the bummer.

Babygirl up 4% from last Friday.

I'm curious to see how the weekend estimates will change, given the bad weather in many places. I hope it doesn't have a significant impact.

Weekend #'s.

1 Mufasa $23,836,000 -35% $168,600,931
2 Sonic 3 $21,200,000 -43% $187,508,000
3 Nosferatu $13,200,000 -39% $69,401,000
4 Moana 2 $12,397,000 -34% $425,152,483
5 Wicked $10,200,000 -48% $450,752,000

6 A Complete Unknown $8,067,000 -31% $41,696,667
7 Babygirl $4,492,499 - $16,112,999
8 Gladiator II $2,675,000 -35% $168,867,000
9 Homestead $2,103,576 -32% $17,475,156
10 The Fire Inside $1,229,901 -37% $7,128,870

-Kraven the Hunter $1,052,000 -35% $23,700,000
-Se7en $915,000 $101,040,643
-The Damned $801,000

Mufasa rises to #1 in its 3rd weekend. Wicked has the worst drop of the top 12. Decent re-release for Se7en. Babygirl goes up $2K from last weekend.

Nosferatu number seems strong.

Still mad about Wicked!

Go Babygirl!

Ya idk if the digital release was worth cuttinginto Wicked's gross. Even if it came out later it probably still would've done similar business digitally.

Moana is at $960,452,483 worldwide. Good for another $30M domestic so guess $1B+ now is a lock. Mufasa is at $476,400,931 worldwide. At least it looks like it will do $600M+. DHD also posted a few cool 2024 stats in their weekend report.

Top domestic theater chains
-AMC ($2B+ 23%, Regal $1.3B 15.3%, Cinemark 14.9%. Rest are Cineplex (Canada), Marcus, Harkins, Alamo, Landmark Canada, Santikos and Emagine.

Top markets
-LA $681.1M (7.9%), NYC $559.7M (6.5%), Dallas $266.3M (3%), SF $240.3M (2.8%), Chicago $234M (2.7%).

2024 US/Canada admissions:
-740M
-Annual box office ($8.72B) means avg ticket price was $11.784.

Nosferatu should be number 1 on Wednesday when all schools are in session and kids movies all fall hard.

The 7 re-release cume is too low. It had scraped by $100m back in 95