The two biggest movies of the year, Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Disney’s Mufasa: The Lion King, had an all-out brawl at the box office during their premiere weekends: Dec 20th. Both movies competed for the film of the year 2024, but only one came out on top. The community has responded to the criticism of these movies and agrees. That is mostly.
The two films are adapted from previously established franchises but help further deepen their stories. Sonic Movie 3 is a continuation of the first two live-action sonic movies and cleverly builds on the world. Like the previous movies, most of the elements are adapted from Sonic’s early video games released on the Sega Genesis and the Sega Dreamcast. This marketing decision allows older fans to have something to look forward to in the Sonic movies and gives newer fans an introduction to the franchise.
Wharton senior, Charles Eagle, gives a great perspective on the topic of recycling old concepts for new films: “For films such as adaptations, they should go lightly on using older materials. There should instead be a greater emphasis on bringing in new ideas.”
It’s a mixed reaction by fans when adaptations are made due to what is the expected outcome. It can lead fans to want more or feel scammed for being given overused content.
Disney writers decided to take a creative approach with the Lion King storyline and rewind to an unexplained point in the narrative: the origin story of Mufasa. Being sure to be consistent with the continuity of the original Lion King, establishes the characters we know and love today. First-time viewers are shocked to learn what certain truths lie within the movie.
Both movies were enjoyed by critics and fans alike, leading to quite a successful box office weekend. The Tomatometer and Popcornmeter are effective ways to measure the quality and judgment of movies on a critical level. The Sonic 3 movie earned 88% on the Tomatometer and 95% on the Popcornmeter, and the Mufasa movie earned 57% on the Tomatometer and 89% on the Popcornmeter (rottentomatoes.com).
Jessica Martinez, a senior at Wharton, shares her opinion on the movies: “I think the movies were overall a great time. I enjoyed the previous films.”
Overall, these numbers are quite positive and reflect well given the communities’ input. Though, there is a big disconnect between the community and Disney executive’s decision for a series of advertisements for their latest movie. Commercials that publicized the Mufasa movie contained quotes saying it was the biggest movie in the world. Most viewers saw it as a simple AD, fans of the Sonic 3 movie on the other hand had other plans. In retaliation, fans decided to post clips on popular social media sites such as Twitter (aka X), Instagram, and TikTok of viewers mocking the Mufasa movie in the comment section of the posts and blasting music featured in the Sonic movie. When the comment section for Disney’s post on Twitter was getting too crowded, they decided to shut it down.
There’s major speculation surrounding the situation. Fans find it hard to believe how Mufasa: The Lion King was able to surpass the likes of Sonic the Hedgehog 3. The Sonic 3 movie had an unfair disadvantage when it came to being published internationally. The movie did not theaters in Japan until Jan 10th. Whereas Mufasa was able to go internationally on day one (Dec 20th).
Speculation also arose when Disney allegedly bought out more screenings of their movie and bullied theaters that opted to show the Sonic 3 movie over theirs. This would lead to Disney, of course, having higher numbers for screenings and their profit margins. In the end, Disney beat Paramount in their profit margins with $ 547 million to $ 419 million.
Though the tension between fans and Disney has not entirely cleared up, they know who won in their minds. There have been movies in the past that were released on the same box office weekend: the Barbie movie and Oppenheimer. This led to a series of trends that passed the two and created action on social media platforms. Though this may not be the case for Disney and the community, there could be other movies in the future that share this same attention.