Nolte: Disney’s ‘Mufasa: The Lion King’ Opens to Disastrous $35 Million

Early projections (that could go up or down before Monday) show that with Mufasa, Disney has another box office bomb on its hands.

After a disastrous 2023, the Disney Grooming Syndicate took a deep breath through much of 2024 and then late in the year dropped two box office smashes in a row: Moana 2 and Inside Out 2. Things were looking up for the degenerates who run the disgraced Mouse House.

Today, not so much.

Mufasa: The Lion King, a prequel to the 1994 animated classic (one of the few animated movies I love), just opened to a catastrophic $35 million. Even more humiliating is the fact that if these numbers hold, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is set to double that haul with a $70.5 million opening.

Early projections had Mufasa opening to $50 million and Sonic 3 opening to $60 million. My assumption was that the $50 million projection for Mufasa was a parlor trick to make the prequel look like a hit if it opened to anything higher, which seemed like a no-brainer when you’re talking about the Lion King brand.

You see, back in 2019, the CGI’d remake of The Lion King (which I’ve not seen) opened to around $200 million, so how could a prequel not succeed?

Some folks are blaming weak reviews. Mufasa earned a 57 percent rotten over at Rotten Tomatoes. But Moana 2 is a monster hit with a slightly better 61 percent.

As much as I would like to blame Mufasa’s failure on Woke, there was no political controversy around it.

As much as I would like to blame it on Disney destroying its brand, the box office blow-outs Moana 2 and Inside Out 2 prove that the right product can still pack ‘em in, even with the Disney stink all over them.

What Mufasa’s underperformance does show is that the Disney brand is no longer what it was—bulletproof. Until Disney decided to sexualize and groom little kids, everything Disney turned to gold. Those days are over.

Stranger things have happened over the Christmas holidays than what looks like a box office bomb rallying into a hit, so I wouldn’t count Mufasa out until January 2, 2025. Nevertheless, Mufasa reportedly cost somewhere around $300 million to produce and promote, so break-even is looking like a long ways off.

Next up for the Disney Degenerates is Snow White, the live-action, $350 million remake scheduled to dead-cat-bounce into theaters on March 21.

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