’Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house the cousins, grandmas, uncles, mothers, and pets were fighting over which creature feature to support come Christmas Day: Mufasa, the non-animated animated lion; Sonic, the hedgehog; or Nosferatu, the sexy, brooding one. Ultimately, after winning the lead-up to Christmas, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 eked out another $38 million on Christmas weekend, just barely outearning Mufasa: The Lion King at $37.1 million, per Box Office Mojo. Just below them came Robert Eggers’s Nosferatu, which scored $21.1 million, a decidedly nonfamily movie.
Meanwhile, A Complete Unknown, which doesn’t feature any creatures — unless you count the monster that Bob Dylan (Timothée Chalamet) becomes toward Sylvie (Elle Fanning) — came in sixth place, behind Wicked and Moana 2, with $11.6 million but ahead of Nicole Kidman’s Babygirl, in seventh place, with $4.3 million. Still, despite Sonic’s weekend-box-office win, it didn’t win the weekly box office, which includes Christmas Day. There, Mufasa reigned supreme, earning $76.3 million, in comparison to Sonic’s $60.1 million. Hmmm … does Aesop have a fable about the CGI lion and the mutant hedgehog?