Box office: Mufasa takes the crown as holiday releases hold strong

Even without any new wide releases, this was the first time since 2020 that five films grossed $10 million or more during the first weekend of the year.

“One day, lad, all this box office will be yours…” Mufasa (Braelyn Rankins, centre), with his parents Masego (Keith David, right), and Afia (Anika Noni Rose, left).

There were no new wide releases this week—not even the traditional first-weekend-of-the-year horror movie—so this week’s top ten looked just like last week’s, but with some of the titles switched around.

Mufasa: The Lion King claimed the top spot from Sonic the Hedgehog 3 for the first time since the two films came out simultaneously a couple weeks earlier. And Moana 2 pulled ahead of Wicked for the first time in a few weeks, partly (perhaps) because Wicked is now competing with its own digital-video release.

Meanwhile, Nosferatu had an unusually good hold for a horror movie, and one of the best second-week holds of any Dracula movie ever; the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown became the top-grossing Searchlight film in seven years; the erotic thriller Babygirl didn’t have a second-weekend drop at all; and Homestead is just a week or two away from becoming Angel Studios’ top film since Sound of Freedom.

Also worth noting: The Best Christmas Pageant Ever passed a new milestone as it inched across the $40 million mark domestically in its ninth week, becoming the second “faith-based” film to do so this decade and, depending on how one defines the genre, arguably only the thirteenth “faith-based” film to do that ever.

This was also the first time in five years that five or even four movies grossed at least $10 million simultaneously during the first weekend of the year.

And now, a few more stats and facts re: this week’s top ten, title by title: