2024 Lookback: ‘Mufasa’ Meltdown Caps Unpredictable Box Office Year

As another turbulent year in media and tech comes to an end, VIP+ analysts are revisiting what they got right — and wrong — in their 2024 forecasts. In this installment, Kaare Eriksen gauges the inconsistency of 2024’s domestic box office predictions, highlighting which films did not track with market expectations at the time and what the related sentiment may have been.

Imagine time-traveling to the summer of 2019 and telling folks the follow-up to Disney’s CG remake of “The Lion King,” which topped out at well over $1.6 billion globally, would be run over by a “Sonic the Hedgehog” film five years later.

That’s precisely what occurred last weekend. Ahead of the holidays, “Mufasa: The Lion King” opened to a dreary $35 million domestically, well under the nearly $200 million opening of its 2019 predecessor, allowing “Sonic the Hedgehog 3” to steal the show with $62 million for the weekend.

It’s a fitting close to a year of nonstop surprises in the theatrical film market.

Last spring, I took a gander at Guggenheim Securities’ roundup of trader forecasts on Hollywood Stock Exchange, a platform where users buy and sell virtual shares of individual films as if they were publicly traded companies.

Created in March, when “Dune: Part Two” was the first standout of the year, these forecasts could not have been more inconsistent. To be fair, box office estimations are difficult to make until weeks out from a film’s release, as such forecasts are adjusted throughout the year per market shifts and subsequent turnout for other movies.

Still, it’s hard not to guffaw at how positive the market felt about “Mufasa.” Estimated to have amassed $281 million in its first four weeks, the Guggenheim roundup pinned the CG “Lion King” prequel as likely to be the No. 2 film of the year, a ceiling it has no chance of meeting even as holiday turnout improves on its $35 million debut.

I was guilty of this assumption myself. Weeks ago, I posited “Mufasa” would cap Disney’s year on the highest of notes after “Moana 2” dominated Thanksgiving’s crop of films. I didn’t disregard “Sonic” completely but still referred to one of Paramount’s stronger film assets as “modest.” Its $62 million may not be a franchise best for “Sonic,” but it sure isn’t the sea change Disney is looking at as another $200 million-budgeted tentpole crashes, a trend the box office leader was otherwise bucking this year.

While HSX forecasters were nearly correct in pinning “Deadpool & Wolverine” as 2024’s No. 2 film, they underestimated the Marvel movie’s ceiling by more than $200 million. That turns into nearly $300 million when it comes to the prediction for “Inside Out 2,” the year’s actual winner. Likewise, “Moana 2” made more than double the HSX prediction in its first four weeks.

By comparison, the forecast for Universal’s “Despicable Me 4” was much closer to the result but still undershot it by $40 million, and HSX also failed to predict the anticipation for “Wicked,” missing its first four weeks by a little over $200 million.

Warner Bros.’ penchant for R-rated top performers was also tarnished this year, with HSX users overestimating “Joker: Folie à Deux” by $200 million and “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” by close to $100 million.

As I wrote in October, the “Joker” sequel mainly crashed due to assumptions the 2019 billion-dollar grosser and Oscar winner was more than just lightning in a bottle, following dramatic changes in corporate ownership at Warners, while “Furiosa,” itself a prequel 2014’s “Mad Max: Fury Road,” clearly gambled too much on the amount of time between releases.

“Mufasa” may have suffered a similar fate. Five years is a significant length of time in kid years and also plenty of space for gaming to grow that much more in relevance. That allowed “Sonic” enough time to occupy more mindshare in kids than a classic Disney character who, if we’re being honest, undoubtedly means more to nostalgia-prone adults than the hordes of children who were otherwise dragging their parents to just about every animated film in 2024.

In a year that was already hampered by the strike-laden gap in new releases and the studios’ reshuffling strategy, success was defined by the degree to which expectations were defied by the likes of Neon’s “Longlegs,” Sony’s “It Ends With Us” — Justin Baldoni’s alleged misconduct not withstanding — and then “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” and “Wicked.” The latter two films Luminate film research manager Julie Sesnovich predicted in a conversation with me would be big hits but were vastly underestimated by the HSX forecasts.

Even if 2025’s film slates are packed, setting up next year for a stronger box office rebound, one thing is obvious: Theatrical is far from dead, and it’s anyone’s guess which films will continue to prove so.

Other VIP+ 2024 lookbacks ...
• Tyler Aquilina revisits the media business’ first year in a post-streaming wars world
• Rob Steiner revisits 2024 in the creator economy — and whether it made its mark
• Audrey Schomer revisits how the year in generative AI impacted Hollywood