The Boxoffice Podium
Forecasting the Top 3 Movies at the Domestic Box Office | December 20 – 22, 2024
Week 51 | December 20 – 22, 2024
Top 10 3-Day Range | Weekend 51, 2024: $150M — $200M
1. Sonic the Hedgehog 3
Paramount Pictures | NEW
Opening Weekend Range: $70M – $85M
Showtime Market Share: 25%
Pros
- Paramount and its partners at Original Film have kept the budgets relatively modest and the profits big on the Sonic movies. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is smartly keeping the previous onscreen (Jim Carrey, James Marsden) and BTS teams (director Jeff Fowler, screenwriters Pat Casey & Josh Miller) intact, and the film itself plays very well to a family crowd. New voice addition Keanu Reeves as Shadow plus Carrey doing his 90’s schtick in two different roles gives the third film enough of a new dimension to make it the movie to beat for Christmas.
- After an early design snafu for the title character (which was promptly corrected following outcry from fans), the first movie opened on Valentine’s Day 2020 to $58M before a cume of $146M stateside and $302.5M globally, and that’s only with roughly a month of play before the global shutdown that year. Two years later, Paramount dropped Sonic the Hedgehog 2 with a domestic bow of $72.1M before coming in at $190.8M domestic and $405.1M WW. Pre-release tracking had this opening in the $60 – $75M range, but multiple members of our forecasting panel believe this film is poised to outperform those expectations. Our final forecast has Sonic 3 opening equal-to-or-higher than the second film as it launches in 3,800 domestic locations, with special fan events on opening day including in-theater gifts (keychains, posters) and behind-the-scenes content to grease the wheels for a stellar debut.
Cons
- Both previous Sonic movies have been solid earners for Paramount, which has a drought of viable franchises at the moment, although grosses have been modest compared to something like Transformers which measures its takes in billions. Right now the Sonic franchise is about $300M shy of the billion dollar milestone. The 6-episode Knuckles tie-in series for Paramount+ -which came out in April of this year and performed very well for the streamer- should, in theory, have grown the family audience for Sonic 3. However, as Ms. Marvel/The Marvels proved last year, streaming synergy can sometimes equate to oversaturation.
2. Mufasa: The Lion King
Walt Disney Pictures | NEW
Opening Weekend Range: $50M – $65M
Showtime Market Share: 23%
Pros
- Disney will continue its 2024 domination with Mufasa: The Lion King, a prequel to the 2019 remake directed by Oscar-winner Barry Jenkins (Moonlight) with songs by powerhouse Lin-Manuel Miranda (Moana, Encanto). This will ideally be the cherry on top of a terrific year for the studio, which recently crossed $2B at the domestic box office anchored by franchise tentpoles (Inside Out 2, Deadpool and Wolverine, Moana 2, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, Alien: Romulus). We’re looking at nothing close to the 2019 movie’s debut at the moment, but that does not mean Mufasa will be extinct given that Christmas is literally right around the corner… this is essentially Christmas weekend Part One (Dec 20-22) and Part Two (Dec 24-26).
Cons
- Director Jon Favreau’s 2019 “live-action” redo of Disney’s 1994 animated classic opened in summer of 2019 to a staggering $191.7M before raking in $1.66B WW, becoming the #2 global hit of the year after Avengers: Endgame. However, Disney’s track record of following up hits like these has been spotty, as with Alice Through the Looking Glass or 102 Dalmatians. Going the prequel route is also a dicey proposition for audiences lately, as seen previously this year with Transformers One, The First Omen, and the disastrous Furiosa. Mufasa‘s pre-sales have lagged behind Sonic 3′s, but the movie could pick up word-of-mouth audiences through January since there’s no major new family competitor (besides Sonic) until Dog Man arrives on January 31.
3. Moana 2
Walt Disney Pictures | Week 4
Weekend Range: $12M – $18M
Showtime Market Share: 11%
Pros
- Moana 2 has already topped the original stateside ($342M) and globally ($722.4M), and is now digging in for a possible holiday boost with schools emptying out across the country as early as this Friday. The timing couldn’t be better for theaters, who get both a weekend and Christmas boost that should benefit all titles, even a month-old one like this.
Cons
- There’s no question Mufasa and Sonic are going to be a major shot across the bow for Moana 2, with a lot of family options for the coming Christmas break. We’re looking at at another likely 50%+ drop from last frame’s $26.4M take, although this is still the most kid-friendly game in town given the slightly older audience the two newcomers are courting vs the all-ages appeal of Moana and Maui.
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