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It was, overally, a pretty big weekend at the box office. Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Disney’s Mufasa: The Lion King both hit theaters, leading to another high-profile battle of the blockbusters. Meanwhile, quite a few hodovers that have been in theaters for weeks continued to benefit from the pre-Christmas crowd, while a couple of other big recent releases crashed and burned. While all of this was going on, there was not a single horror movie in sight.
Indeed, horror wasn’t just boxed out of the top ten – it was absent from the charts entirely this past weekend. Even down to 23 spot, which was NEON’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig ($16,250), no horror movie made enough to chart this past weekend. That is exceedingly rare. While A24’s Heretic has held extremely well in recent weeks, that was about it. Smile 2 finished up its theatrical run. Meanwhile, Wereweolves, Y2K and Nightbitch bombed their way out of theaters before we could blink. So, here we are.
Fortunately, genre lovers won’t have to wait long for that to change. On Christmas Day, Robert Eggers’ long-awaited Nosteratu hits theaters to get in on the long holiday weekend. It debuts alongside the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown and A24’s Babygirl, which stars Nicole Kidman. Focus features is pushing Nosferatu like crazy, including that wild casket popcorn bucket, along with a large marketing effort. It should make quite the splash. Cineverse is also re-releasing Terrifier 3 in theaters just in time for Christmas.
Things really change once we get into January, with David Fincher’s Seven re-release, Blumhouse’s Wolf Man, Steven Soderbgh’s Presence and the Zach Cregger-produced sci-fi thriller Companion will all hit theaters. It’s just that the way things worked out, horror ended up taking a little late-in-the-year vacation to help put a bow on 2024.
Circling back to what did happen, Sonic 3 pulled in $62 million, which was pretty much right in line with industry expectations, but enough to justify Sonic 4, which has already been given a 2027 release date. At the same time, Disney’s Lion King prequel flamed out pretty badly with a $35 million debut against a whopping $200 million budget. When we consider that 2019’s Lion King opened to north of $190 million domestically, we’re looking at a sizable drop off. Disney will be relying on overseas grosses to bail them out.
Universal’s Wicked moved back into the top three with $13.5 million, leap-frogging Moana 2, which pulled in $13.1 million. Meanwhile, last weekend’s big new releases – Kraven the Hunter and The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim – flamed out in spectacular fashion, pulling in just $3.1 million and $1.2 million respectively. Both movies dropped more than 70% after posting terrible opening weekends. Pour one out for Sony and Warner Bros.
You can check out the full list of the top ten movies at the box office for the weekend of December 20, 2024, below. For more, check out our list of underrated horror movies to watch over the holidays.
- Sonic the Hedgehog 3 – $62 million (first weekend)
- Mufasa: The Lion King – $35 million (first weekend)
- Wicked – $13.5 million (fifth weekend)
- Moana 2 – $13.1 million (fourth weekend)
- Homestead – $6 million (first weekend)
- Gladiator II – $4.4 million (fifth weekend)
- Kraven the Hunter – $3.1 million (second weekend)
- The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim – $1.2 million (second weekend)
- The Best Christmas Pageant Ever – $825,000 (seventh weekend)
- Red One – $416,000 (sixth weekend)
