‘Mufasa’ Claws Back At ‘Sonic’ Thursday, ‘Lion King’ Prequel Eyes $58M 5-Day; Focus Features & Searchlight Having Renaissance – Box Office Update

Refresh for more…Mufasa continued to get from the count on Thursday, beating Sonic The Hedgehog 3, $12M to $11.55M. The 3-day and 5-days on these two family movies are expected to be close. Mufasa is currently looking to be the stronger at $58M. Running total through yesterday on Mufasa is $76.4M while Sonic 3 stands at $99.55M.

But enough about those filthy animals, the real story over the holiday are the classic labels, Focus Features and Searchlight which are both seeing record openings. Post Covid, Focus Features rose from the ashes this weekend to remind the town how hip they can make movies, the win here being Robert Eggers’ gothic vampire movie Nosferatu which is eyeing a $21.4M 3-day and $40.6M 5-day after $7.6M yesterday, the pic’s second day of release. At five days, that’s the biggest Focus Features opening ever, besting the Friday-Tuesday take of 2019’s Downton Abbey which did $38.4M. At 3-days, Nosferatu is bound to rank as the fourth best for Focus after Downton Abbey ($31M), Insidious 3 ($23.7M) and London Has Fallen ($21.6M) — still excellent for this arthouse label which has been guard-railed by Comcast Universal’s 17-day PVOD window. The 55% male-skewing, 4 star PostTrak Nosferatu is also easily the best opening for Focus Features post Covid ahead of 2022’s Downton Abbey: The New Era which did $16M. As we mentioned, Nosferatu is filmmaker Robert Eggers’ best opening of his career, ahead of New Regency/Focus Features’ The Northman ($12.2M). The 7PM at the Alamo Drafthouse in Yonkers, NY last night for this Lily-Rose Depp, Nicholas Hoult, Bill Skarsgard and Aaron Taylor-Johnson feature was completely sold out.

Similar applause here for Searchlight with James Mangold’s Bob Dylan movie, A Complete Unknown which is seeing a $12M 3-day and $24M 5-day. For the classic label, it’s the best opening they’ve seen post the 2019 Disney merger. For reference the top three Searchlight openings ever belong to 2009’s Notorious ($20M), 2006’s The Hills Have Eyes ($15.7M) and 2018’s Super Troopers 2 ($15.1M).

In a theatrical marketplace which continues to compete with streaming on mid-sized films, the success here for Nosferatu and A Complete Unknown should be duly noted and provide plenty of hope for the greenlighting of such fare as we head into a 2025 box office year, untainted by strikes and (knock on wood) a pandemic. What’s working here? In Nosferatu it’s the tried-and true horror genre at work but in the hands of a rising cool auteur in Eggers, who is making a name for himself among the hipster 18-34 (56%) ala Ari Aster. With A Complete Unknownit’s all accessible movie about Bob Dylan which adults (62% over 35) haven’t had before in the hands of a director who knows how to create passion and warmth from the warts and all of such onstage artists (read, the Oscar winning Walk the Line which opened to $22.3M and legged out to $119.5M domestic).

Juxtapose Nosferatu and A Complete Unknown to the non-franchise adult openings of last Christmas: The $8M period drama The Boys in the Boat, the Michael Mann dark drama Ferrari ($3.9M), the tragic A24 wrestling dynasty drama The Iron Claw ($4.8M) and the very front-loaded The Color Purple ($11.7M 3-day) which finaled at $60.6M.

Also, let’s not ignore that when it comes to launching these two movies — there’s no matter time than now when everyone is going.

A24’s very R-rated office romance drama Babygirl starring Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson made $1.3M yesterday, -13% from its Christmas Day of $1.5M for a running total of $2.8M. 5-day outlook is just under $7M.

Amazon MGM Studios’ The Fire Inside grossed $613K on Thursday, -64% from Christmas. The Rachel Morrison young woman’s boxing movie is looking at a 5-day of $4.3M in 10th place.

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