The fight for top spot at the box office is always closely fought between movies, but the Christmas period proved extra scrappy with both Mufasa: The Lion King and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 claiming victory.
It appears there must be a blatant error from one studio there, and only $900,000 (£714K) actually separated the two titles at the American box office over the weekend.
Technically it was Sonic 3 that edged ahead by a blue hair over Mufasa with $38million (£30,171,181) to its $37.1m (£29,456,601), raked in from tickets purchased over the usual weekend period of Friday to Sunday, December 27-29.
When the official Walt Disney Studios account then shared its celebration on Sunday night that Mufasa was ‘now the #1 movie in America, and the #1 movie in the world, two weeks in a row’, many fans immediately slammed Disney for telling porkies.
There were cries of ‘blatant lie’ and ‘wrong’ in the comments, not helped along by the post initially receiving a community note that linked to the US box office chart on IMDb and read: ‘That’s not true. Sonic 3 is still the #1 movie in America.’
However, it actually is true – as is the fact that Sonic reigns supreme as well. But how can that be so?
As Christmas Day fell on a Wednesday, the studios can look at two sets of numbers: The five-day earnings, dating from and including the 25th, and also the usual three-day weekend earnings.
With the five-day tally, Mufasa actually had the edge, bringing in $63.8m (£50.6m) during that period – and the community note, which adds context to posts that might be misleading or inaccurate, has since been removed.
In terms of Disney’s global box office claim for Mufasa being at number one, that is also correct.
The Lion King prequel is sitting pretty on $327.9m (£260.3m) for its global box office total so far, while Sonic’s return has him at $211.5m (£167.9m).
Over the weekend internationally, Mufasa roared a little louder too to bag $114.2m (£90.6m) to Sonic 3’s $112m (£88.9m).
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Mufasa’s plot reveals the origin story of the mighty titular patriarch as an orphaned cub (with Aaron Pierre stepping in for the late James Earl Jones) and his adopted brother Taka (Kelvin Harrison Jr), who eventually becomes known as Scar – and was first voiced by British actor Jeremy Irons.
The photo-realistic animation also boasts the vocal talents of Beyoncé, her daughter Blue Ivy Carter, Donald Glover, Mads Mikkelsen, Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen, while Sonic 3 welcomes back with open arms the previously-announced-as-retired Jim Carrey as Dr Ivo Robotnik and his mad grandfather Gerald.
Keanu Reeves joins the voice cast as Shadow the Hedgehog, this movie’s big bad, alongside Ben Schwartz as Sonic, Idris Elba as Knuckles and Colleen O’Shaughnessey as Tails.
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Metro has contacted Disney for comment.
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