‘Den of Thieves 2’ steals top spot from ‘Mufasa’ at weekend box office

This is the circle of life: Moufasa expected to abdicate the throne at some point.

Den of Thieves 2: Pantera has exceeded Mufasa: The Lion King at the top of the domestic box office this weekend, with $15.5 million in revenue MoufasaThat’s $13.2 million. Lionsgate’s sequel to the 2018 action game, starring Gerard Butler and O’Shea Jackson Jr., debuted at No. 1, finally settling the weeks-long battle between the Lion King live-action prequel and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 for first place.

Both family-oriented films had slight competition from Robert Eggers’ lush historical horror. Nosferatuwhich premiered on Christmas Day. But overall, the box office story of the past month has been one of the lion versus the hedgehog – until this weekend.

As Moufasathe third part of the live-action/animation Sonic the franchise is in its fourth week of release. The latter film grossed $11 million this weekend, bringing its cumulative domestic gross to $204.5 million and giving it a solid edge over the former, which this weekend raked in a cumulative domestic gross of of $188.7 million.

Nosferatu remained steady in fourth place, adding $6.8 million to its U.S. profits, now at $81.8 million. This is particularly impressive given that the film draws its narrative from a 19th-century epistolary novel and its aesthetic from a historical element of silent film expressionism – a far cry from gunfights and singing baby animals.

This weekend’s domestic box office is rounded out by Moana 2 at No. 5 with $6.5 million, and the Bob Dylan biopic A complete stranger and giant Broadway adaptation Wicked vying for sixth place at $5 million a piece. While Timothée Chalamet has only been playing for dinner for three weeks, Wicked is in its eighth week of release, blowing up the rest of the chart with a staggering cumulative domestic gross of $459 million.

A24’s modestly scaled erotic drama Little girlscreened in half of the theaters as Sonic And Moufasatook eighth place, followed by Telugu romance Game changer and Pamela Anderson’s comeback vehicle The last showgirlboth in their first week of release.

The global box office picture features all the same actors, but tells an entirely different story. Moufasa easily retains its seat on the world throne with a $41 million weekend gross, followed by Sonic with 31 million dollars, Nosferatu with $20.5, and finally Den of thieveswhich just missed the top three with a weekend gross of $19.7.

Moana 2, WickedAnd Little girl appear in the world rankings, in fifth, sixth and ninth places respectively, and three new films are part of the world’s top 10.

The Mandarin-language kidnapping thriller comes in seventh at the global box office this weekend. Octopus with broken arms. The new film starring Chinese sensations Liya Tong and Duan Yihong is currently topping that country’s domestic box office.

At the eighth and tenth are Big worlda surrealist Chinese docufiction by director Yang Lina, and Honey money is bogusalso Chinese, a romantic comedy that also marks the directorial debut of screenwriter Biao Su.

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What will dominate next weekend’s box office is anyone’s guess, as Friday’s premiere slate contains no obvious film mainstays. Moufasa Or Sonic band. But does it potentially harbor a Den of Thieves 2which few box office prognosticators predicted they would take home the top spot?

The premiere on Friday January 17 is Wolfmanthe new Blumhouse photo of The invisible manThey are Leigh Whannell, One of these daysa raucous buddy comedy starring Keke Palmer and musician SZA, and award-winning dramas I’m still here And Sing Sing.