Sonic is gearing up to leave Mufasa in the dust. Both Sonic The Hedgehog 3 and Mufasa: The Lion King are debuting on the big screen ahead of Christmas, and Sonic is already outracing Mufasa. 

Sonic The Hedgehog 3 finds Sonic back alongside Tails and Knuckles facing down an old enemy when Dr. Robotnik returns. But when a new threat shows up in the form of Shadow, voiced by Keanu Reeves, Sonic must reach new heights if he has any hope of defending what he holds dear against his most powerful adversary yet. 

Already, Sonic 3 is looking at a $70 million gross for this weekend, speeding to the top of the box office charts for the three-day stretch. Hollywood Reporter notes that the Thursday totals alone for the film were a whopping $6.5 million, the highest the franchise has seen thus far. The $6.5 million helped out with a Friday of $25.6 million. 

Mufasa, however, is starting to come up short of its initial $50 million estimate. While the first Lion King had a royal performance at the box office, Mufasa is struggling to meet its own expectations, with $13.3 million in first-day grosses. This will lead it to roughly $35 million come Sundays close. 

Hollywood Reporter also notes that critical reception is starting to lean in favor of Sonic. Sonic 3 boasts an 86% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes and a 7.7 on IMDb, while Mufasa has a 57% critic score and only a 6.7 on IMDb. 

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