Sonic the Hedgehog declares victory over “Mufasa” and more in weekend box office sprint

It was an animal-kingdom cage-match at the weekend box office, with Barry Jenkins' live-action Lion King prequel Mufasa and Jeff Fowler's Sonic the Hedgehog 3 in contention for the top spot.

While Mufasa's wide international release easily won it gold at the global box office, Sonic grossed nearly double the Disney film's numbers domestically on fewer screens. The third in a series of action-packed adaptations of the original Sega video game from Paramount, Sonic the Hedgehog 3's domestic weekend gross totaled $62 million, per Comscore.

The latest in Disney's string of live-action remakes, reboots, and prequels to classic animated films, meanwhile, finished its opening weekend with $35 million in the domestic market but roared to an impressive $122 million globally across 53 territories (compared to Sonic's 12).

Related: Sonic 3 post-credits scenes explained: Meet the new characters

These two tussling for the crown is a surprising regime change from the recent box office; the dominant story for weeks has been the battle between Universal's Wicked and Disney's Moana II.

The long-awaited Broadway musical adaptation and Wizard of Oz riff defied gravity when it opened the weekend of Nov. 22 in the top spot to a dizzying $114 million. If it weren't for the sequel to the 2016 island-hopping animated adventure debuting to even more eye-popping numbers the following week, Wicked would undoubtedly have held firm at No. 1.

This weekend, the pair of films grossed roughly equivalent amounts domestically, with Wicked pulling ever-so-slightly ahead to take the third spot with $13.5 million, while Moana II scored $13.1 million. Wicked also leads Moana II in the cumulative domestic total with $384 million over Moana II's $359. But the Paramount tentpole does have a week's head start, and internationally, Wicked's $571 million cumulative estimate doesn't come close to Moana II's $790 million.

The live-action and CGI hybrid Sonic the Hedgehog 3 follows from the 2022 sequel, another box office champ. It sees the return of director Fowler (the original film marked his feature directorial debut), as well as several franchise stars, including Jim Carrey, Idris Elba, James Marsden, Natasha Rothwell, Tika Sumpter, and Ben Schwartz as the voice of Sonic.

Mufasa is the second live-action-ish swing at the Lion King franchise from Disney after 2019's The Lion King, starring Beyoncé and featuring a Grammy-winning Beyoncé soundtrack. It marks a major departure for director Jenkins, who has made his name on poignant yet gritty, aesthetically rapturous social dramas like Moonlight and If Beale Street Could Talk. Maureen Lee Lenker wrote in Entertainment Weekly's review of the film that Jenkins appears "desperate to prove he can do something interesting with the material," which is otherwise "rather uninspiring."

Related: How Mufasa pays tribute to James Earl Jones: 'It was something we had to do'

Elsewhere on this weekend's box office scorecard are Ridley Scott's Gladiator II, which fell to a respectable sixth place in its fifth week of release, Sony's Aaron Taylor-Johnson vehicle Kraven the Hunter, which has failed to find a foothold in only its second week in theaters, and the Christmas comedy Red One, which earns Dwayne Johnson his second appearance on the top 10 (he reprises his voice role as Maui in Moana II).

The studio behind last year's surprise hit Sound of Freedom is back with another hit in Homestead. Angel Studios has traded a sex-trafficking thriller with Christian overtones for a post-apocalyptic thriller with Christian overtones. Arriving at $6 million in its first week of release with no major studio backing or recognizable star anchoring the film is another major accomplishment.

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Rounding out the domestic top 10 are Warner Bros. animated Lord of the Rings film The War of the Rohirrim in the ninth spot, and the Lionsgate ensemble comedy The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, which is holding firm at the edge of the top 10 in its seventh week in release.

The upcoming weekend, which sits snugly between Christmas and New Year's, will host a tri-part arthouse smackdown. Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown faces Nicole Kidman in To Die For mode in Babygirl, and they'll both stare down the undead in the form of Robert Eggers' Nosferatu.

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