Receipts: 'Mufasa' maintains top spot amid weak domestic returns for films
Domestic: Disney’s Mufasa: The Lion King, held onto its number one spot at the box office despite a lower-than-expected opening return of $13.3 million when released Monday, December 9, 2024. Since its release, the film grossed an additional $168.6 million, adding to its worldwide gross of $307.8 million for a total return of $476.4 million against its $200 million budget marking it a box office success for Disney.
Mufasa: The Lion King (2024) is a prequel to Disney’s live-action remake of its 1994 film, The Lion King. The film follows a young Mufasa as he finds a new family and new enemies. Compared to the 2019 Lion King box office performance of $1.6 billion against its $260 million budget, Mufasa: The Lion King fell short of studio expectations. The film was negatively received by critics with a 55% score on Rotten Tomatoes, following the trend of Disney’s live-action remakes which tend to be profitable, the total adaptations grossing around $10.2 billion, but being poorly received with much criticism directed at the perceived lack of originality and inferiority to the original films.
Disney’s Moana 2 took the number 3 spot at the domestic box office, surpassing Nosferatu and Wicked which held the top spots last week to take in an additional $3.3 million, adding to its total domestic gross of $425.1 million against its budget of $150 million. Moana 2’s worldwide box office is estimated at an additional $535.3 million making the film a box office success. The film’s success is attributed to the anticipation surrounding the film’s release when the trailer was released in May 2024. The trailer broke Disney’s record in the most watched trailer for a Disney animated movie — previously held by Inside Out 2 and Frozen II — garnering 178 million views in 24 hours.
Despite critical praise directed at Denzel Washington’s performance as Macrinus, a former slave of Rome plotting to overthrow the current emperors, Gladiator II (2024) remained at the bottom of the top 10 films at the domestic box office after almost 7 weeks in theaters. A sequel to Ridley Scott’s Gladiator (2000), the film fell $500,000 short of its projected opening weekend of $60 million, setting it on a course for box office failure, grossing $449.7 million worldwide against its budget of $250 million.
The Fire Inside (2024), a sports biopic following the boxing career of Olympic gold-medal winner Clarissa Shields, opened Wednesday, December 25, 2024 and made $1.6 million, maintaining its position from last week as number 10 in the top 10 domestic box office. The film received critical praise, earning a 94% on Rotten Tomatoes with critics commending its performances and inspirational tone. Despite praise, the film has not performed well financially, grossing a worldwide total of $7.1 million against its $12 million budget.
International: Big World (2024), a Chinese drama directed by Yang Lina took the number one spot at the Chinese box office, grossing $28.6 million the past weekend, adding to its overall gross of $582.6 million. The film stars Yi Yangqianxi as a young man with cerebral palsy. The film follows his inner journey and received a 7.5 out of 10 rating from 97 critics.
Second place at the Chinese box office was held by the recently released Octopus with Broken Arms (2024), a crime drama directed by Jacky Gan following an investigation into the kidnapping of a wealthy businessman’s daughter. The film grossed $21.6 million over its two-day release.
In the South Korean box office, Harbin (2024), a biopic depicting the life of Ahn Jung-gue, a Korean activist who assassinated the first Prime Minister of Japan, Ito Hirobumi. In its third week at the box office, the film maintained its number one spot in the box office, grossing $24.1 million and capturing 41.9% of the market share.
Firefighters (2024), a drama based on arson attempts in a South Korean neighborhood, was released Wednesday, December 4, 2024, but performed consistently well. With an estimated budget of $100,000 the film was a huge box office success, grossing $23.1 million and capturing 10.56% of the market share.
Streaming: A war drama written and directed by Tyler Perry, The Six Triple Eight (2024) made its debut on Netflix on Friday, December 20, 2024, staying in Netflix’s number two spot on its Top 10 Movies list. The Six Triple Eight amassed 23.3 million views and 50.4 million hours watched. Starring Kerry Washington, the film is based on the real World War II all-female all-black battalion, the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion. Despite the views, the film received mixed to negative reviews, earning a 54% on Rotten Tomatoes with criticism directed towards Perry’s screenplay which many critics felt suffered from poor dialogue and a lack of strong direction.
Two films starring Idris Elba were in the bottom ten for Netflix's most-watched, Beast (2022) and The Mountain Between Us (2017). Beast follows Dr. Nate Samuels (Elba) who must protect his daughters from a vicious lion in South Africa. Releasing in August 2022, the film was a box office bomb, grossing $59.1 million against a $36 million budget. Despite this, the film received a 68% rating on Rotten Tomatoes with critics acknowledging the absurd plot but acknowledging the entertainment value of the film. Beast was the most watched film for a week, amassing 5.9 million views and 9.2 million hours watched.
The Mountain Between Us follows Dr. Ben Bass (Elba) and Alex Martin (Kate Winslet) as survivors of a plane crash in the frozen wilderness of the Utah mountains. Originally released on Friday, October 6, 2017, the film was a box office bomb, grossing $62.8 million against a $35 million budget. The film was critically panned but found new life on streaming, with one week in the top ten on Netflix with 5.7 million views and 10.6 million hours watched. The success of Elba’s films could be attributed to his cinematic and television success with Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (2024) and Knuckles (2024) which were critically praised and increased the actor’s popularity with viewers online and in theaters.
