'Mufasa: The Lion King' Roars Past Yet Another Majestic Global Box Office Milestone

Mufasa: The Lion King

By Rahul Malhotra

Published Jan 25, 2025

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Image via Disney

After having completed more than a month in theaters worldwide, Disney's Mufasa: The Lion King has staged a successful comeback at the box office. The movie debuted alongside Sonic the Hedgehog 3, and was handily beaten during their highly-anticipated clash. Mufasa grossed about as much as Joker: Folie à Deux in its first weekend, leading many to write its obituaries. But unlike Joker 2, which tanked in its second weekend, Mufasa found its groove. The movie ended up topping the charts on its third attempt, and has since delivered consistently spectacular results. On its 34th day of release, it passed a massive new milestone globally.

With $211 million domestically and another $389 million from overseas markets, Mufasa's cumulative global total now stands at a whopping $601 million. That being said, it's still trailing its predecessor, the 2019 The Lion King remake, by around $1 billion. This goes to show just how massive a hit The Lion King remake was. Directed by Jon Favreau, the film presented a photorealistic look at the Pride Lands, and went on to gross over $1.6. billion globally. Mufasa, which serves as both a prequel and a sequel to The Lion King, is directed by the Oscar-winning Barry Jenkins.

Best known for his landmark film Moonlight, Jenkins voiced his frustrations with big-budget filmmaking in a pre-release interview with Vulture. Produced on a reported budget of over $200 million, Mufasa opened to mixed reviews, and currently holds a 58% approval rating on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. The film's audience score stands at a far more positive 89%. This explains how it has been able to not only stay afloat in the past few weeks, but also out-perform direct competition like Sonic 3 and Moana 2. The movie played a significant role in pushing Disney past the $5 billion mark globally in 2024.

'Mufasa' Stars Aaron Pierre and Kelvin Harrison Jr.

The majority of Disney's revenue did, however, come from a trio of billion-dollar hits: Inside Out 2, Deadpool & Wolverine, and the most recent addition to this group, Moana 2. Mufasa is the seventh-biggest hit of 2024, ahead of Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, and behind Wicked. It's also among the top 200 highest grossing films in history, and will shortly overtake Transformers: The Last Knight, War of the Worlds, and Logan on the all-time list.