Who Won the Christmas Creature-Feature Box Office?

’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?