After a rather underwhelming debut both domestically and worldwide last weekend, Disney’s Mufasa: The Lion King is aiming to cover some lost ground during the historically lucrative Christmas week. The movie experienced a bump in revenue on Tuesday, and is set to witness another increase on Christmas Day. This should be enough to push its cumulative global haul past a new milestone. Mufasaopened to $122 million worldwide in the first three days of release — a major decrease from the $180 million target that it was projected to hit heading into its opening weekend.
With $42 million domestically and another $104 million from overseas markets — Mufasa made $22 million internationally on Monday — the film’s cumulative global haul now stands at $147 million. The film’s domestic collections alone should be enough to send it past the $150 million milestone globally today. Mufasa is expected to generate around $50 million over the five-day Christmas weekend, after debuting with $35 million in its first frame. By any yardstick, it was a disappointing result for Disney, which saw 2019’s The Lion King open to $191 million in its first weekend.
That movie ultimately grossed $1.6 billion worldwide; even the original animated film has generated nearly $1 billion globally thanks to numerous re-releases over the years. But audiences don’t always turn out for prequels, as was evidenced earlier this year with Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. Mufasa serves as both a prequel and sequel to Jon Favreau’s 2019 hit, with the Oscar-winner Barry Jenkins taking over the reins this time around. It didn’t help that Jenkins essentially expressed dissatisfaction with the creative process on the film in a pre-release interview with Vulture. The movie stars Aaron Pierre and Kelvin Harrison Jr. as Mufasa and Taka, respectively.
'Mufasa' Has a Massive Budget to Recover
Mufasaopened to mixed reviews, and currently sits at a “rotten” 55% approval rating on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. In his review, Collider’s Aidan Kelley wrote that the movie “struggles to justify its existence in the creative sense.” Another hurdle in its path to success is its massive reported budget of over $200 million. The rule of thumb for a film this size says that it will need to earn over $400 million to break even. Mufasa isn’t drawing crowds domestically, and will rely on international audiences to fill in the gaps. You can watch the film in theaters, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
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Simba, having become king of the Pride Lands, is determined for his cub to follow in his paw prints while the origins of his late father Mufasa are explored.
Image via Disney
English (US) ·