Mufasa: The Lion Kinghas hit a massive global box office milestone, even if it can’t compare to its predecessor. The movie is a prequel to the 2019 photorealistic CG-animated remake of the traditionally animated Disney movieThe Lion King. While theMufasa: The Lion Kingreleasestarted off slow, with a lukewarm $35.4 million opening weekend gross seeing it debut at No. 2 at the domestic box office behindSonic the Hedgehog 3, it has had slow and steady growth over the ensuing weeks that saw it quickly rising to become the seventh highest-grossing movie of the year worldwide.
PerVariety, as of Sunday morning,Mufasa: The Lion Kingis projected to close out its seventh weekend in theaters with a worldwide box office gross of $653 million. In addition to becoming justthe seventh 2024 release to cross the $650 million milestone, it is the 169th movie to ever do so in cinema history. However, it still lags significantly behind the $1.66 billion earned by the 2019 movie by the end of its worldwide theatrical run. In fact, it comes in at less than 40% of that movie’s record-smashing total.
What This Means For Mufasa: The Lion King
It Is Still A Box Office Success
While the staggering financial success of theLion Kingremake is most likely what led to the existence of the prequel in the first place, the movie - which follows the younger years of the future ruler and the development of the contentious dynamic between himself and his adopted brother - has not connected with worldwide audiences in the same way. This has been the case even thoughMufasareviewsactually landed it a betterRotten Tomatoes score of 58% compared to the previous installment’s 51%.
The audience scores for both movies are much better than their critic scores, withMufasaearning 89% andThe Lion Kingearning 88%.
However, though it can not live up to the 2019 movie, theMufasa: The Lion Kingbox officeis successful in its own right. In addition to being one of the 10 highest-grossing movies of 2024, it has most likely more than broken even. Movies typically need to earn back two and a half times their budgets, which meansits break-even point was probably roughly $500 million, given its $200 million price tag. This would not have been the case if it had the roughly $260 million budget of the 2019 movie, which may have necessitated a $650 million gross.
Our Take On The Mufasa Box Office Milestone
The Lion King Franchise’s Future Is Still In Doubt
There is still a question as to whetherMufasa: The Lion Kingis a success at a level that means a new installment in the franchise could be greenlit sooner rather than later. While it has almost assuredly turned a profit,it may not have earned enough money to be worth the riskof another installment earning less than half of what the 2024 movie has earned. Given the high cost of bringing photorealistic animated lions to the screen, it seems unlikely that such a movie could have a budget low enough to accommodate for that possibility.
