‘Mufasa’ Leads First Weekend of 2025 With $24M

SATURDAY AM: The first weekend of 2025 –which sources have declared “a normal year”– is eyeing a grand estimated total of $105M for all movies, which is certainly better at +22% than the first weekend of 2024 which did $85.9M per Box Office Mojo.

The first weekend currently ranks second on a post-Covid basis to that of 2023 when the holdover success of Avatar: The Way With Water and ME3AN delivered a $106.2M marketplace. TBD if Winter Storm Blair, which is expected to impact 62M people per CNN from the Plains to the East Coast becomes an issue. How does that number stack up in comparison against the moviegoing public? Per EntTelligence, Deadpool & Wolverine, the highest attended weekend of 2024, pulled in 13.6M.

Still, we’re far away from the annual first weekend levels of pre-Covid times, i.e. 2016 when Star Wars: The Force Awakens in its third weekend led all movies to $219.5M (per Box Office Mojo). Or even 2020, before we had any jitters stateside about the pandemic, when the first frame of the year did $142.4M led by Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.

Top 10

Notables:

SE7EN 30th anniversary (WB) 200 locations, Fri $399K 3-day $1.056M/Wk 1

The Brutalist (A24) 8 theaters, Fri $79K (+27%) 3-day $255K (+21%) Total $1.1M, Wk 3
Brady Corbet’s 3-hour epic is up for seven Golden Globes including Best Feature Drama, Best Male Actor Drama (Adrien Brody), Best Supporting Actor Film (Guy Pearce), Supporting Actress (Felicity Jones) and Director (Corbet). The $6M indie film is posting good numbers in NYC, LA and Toronto in its one theater expansion to the Alamo Brooklyn.

September 5 (Par) 13 theaters (+8) Fri $20K (+220%), 3-day $66K (+192%), Total $298K, Wk 4
The Tim Fehlbaum directed thriller is up for one Golden Globe this Sunday in Best Feature Drama.

Better Man (Par) 6 theaters, Fri $8K (+57%), 3-day $26K (+41%), Total $88K/Wk 2
The movie is up for one Golden Globe for the original song “Forbidden Road” which the Academy deemed not so original, pulling it off its Oscar shortlist.

Interesting to note on the Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson saucy drama Babygirl from A24: The movie gets a B- CinemaScore and doesn’t excite out of the gate with a $1.5M Christmas Day take. However, the Halina Reijn directed and written movie has held in on a daily basis and is now eyeing a solid hold in its second weekend (+3% with $4.6M). What gives? Is it the magic of a saucer of milk? Some distribution sources say there’s a difference between the Christmas Day audience and post-Christmas audience, evident in the CinemaScore and the mini legs the movie is showing off. What’s evident is the A24 word-of-mouth machine is in effect, which is only possible because people have seen the pic and are creating a chime-in factor. Those who love it, love it. In addition, more upscale audiences have more choices this holiday season, which creates a want-to-see for all titles, along with Nosferatu and A Complete Unknown.

While there weren’t any wide releases this weekend, Vertical had their Tribeca acquisition, the horror film The Damned, opening in 732 locations with roughly $325K last night on its way to around $860K. The feature directorial debut of Thordur Palsson centers around Eva (Odessa Young), a 19th-century widow who is tasked with making an impossible choice when a ship sinks off the coast of her isolated fishing outpost during the middle of an especially cruel winter. With provisions running low, Eva and her close-knit community must choose between rescuing the shipwrecked crew and prioritizing their own survival. Facing the consequences of their decision and tormented by guilt, the inhabitants wrestle with a mounting sense of dread and begin to believe they are all being punished for their choices. The movie is 86% fresh with Rotten Tomatoes critics off 35 reviews. The sales are OK in NY, LA, Fresno, Phoenix, San Francisco, Toronto, Sacramento and Orlando we hear.

Other misc. on 2024 as we didn’t have this intel when we did our wrap-up:

AMC was the top theater chain stateside, natch, with north of $2 billion and a 23% marketshare from 556 locations. Regal ranked second with $1.3 billion and a 15.3% market share from around 436 locations. Cinemark followed with $1.3 billion and a 14.9% share from 311 sites. Cineplex (Canada), Marcus, Harkins, Alamo, Landmark Canada, Santikos and Emagine rounded out the top 10 circuits for the year. 

Los Angeles ruled as the top moviegoing market with $681.1M (7.9%) followed by NYC area at No. 2 with $559.7M (6.5%), followed by Dallas ($266.3M – 3%), San Francisco ($240.3M – 2.8%) and Chicago ($234M – 2.7%).

EntTelligence has updated their 2024 U.S./Canada admissions figure from 680M (which was through Dec. 15) to 740M.

FRIDAY AFTERNOON UPDATE: It’s a better first weekend of the year than last year with Disney’s Mufasa and Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog 3 continuing their tussle into their third frames, $23M-$24M to $20M. In regards to 3-day weekends, this is the first No. 1 win for Mufasa. Sonic 3 won the first two 3-day weekends of its release, however, Mufasa was the No. 1 movie for the 5-day Dec. 25-29 period with $60.9M.

The top five movies are set to gross close to $78M which is $22M more than last year’s top five pic’s tally of $56M, meaning we’re in slightly better shape, and that’s without any new big titles.

Mufasa is in play at 3,925 theaters, and will hit $168.7M at the high end by Sunday. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is booked at 3,746 sites and will reach a running total of $186.3M by Sunday, just $4.5M from becoming the highest grossing title in the SEGA franchise, besting Sonic the Hedgehog 2‘s $190.8M.

In third place is Focus Features’ second weekend of Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu at 3,132 theaters with a $12.3M 3-day, -43%, for a running cume by Sunday of $68.5M. And that total is without any Golden Globe noms this weekend. However, the Lily-Rose Depp, Bill Skarsgard, Nicholas Hoult, Aaron Taylor-Johnson movie is up for four Critics Choice Awards.

Fourth is Disney’s sixth weekend of Moana 2 with $12M, -37%, for a running total of $424.7M at 3,345 locations. Worldwide the movie is getting closer to overtaking the Despicable Me 4 global total of $969M, as well as reaching the $1 billion mark. The sequel is up for Best Animated Motion Picture at the Golden Globes this Sunday.

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Fifth is Universal’s seventh weekend of Wicked at 3,287 theaters with a 3-day of $9.5M, -52%, for a running cume of $450M by Sunday. The Jon M. Chu directed title dropped on PVOD on Dec. 31. Wicked is up for four Golden Globes this Sunday including Best Musical/Comedy Feature, Best Actress Comedy/Musical Cynthia Erivo, Best Supporting Actress Ariana Grande and Best Cinematic and Box Office Achievement.

In sixth is Searchlight’s James Mangold directed Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown, with a second weekend of $7.5M, -36% at 2,835 with a running total by Sunday of $41.2M, which will make it the highest grossing Searchlight title post Disney-Fox 2019 merger, surpassing The Menu ($38.5M).

As we previously reported, this weekend, in addition to Oct. 31 and Dec. 12, is one of three weekends in 2025 sans wide releases.

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Last year, the top three movies were Warner Bros’ Wonka ($14M fourth weekend), Universal/Blumhouse’s Nightswim ($11.7M opening) and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom ($10.6M).