Why The First Big Movie Conspiracy Theory Of 2025 Doesn't Hold Any Water

2024 is in the books, we're on to 2025, and hopefully, this year will be a less rocky one at the box office. But last year finished strong, with both "Sonic the Hedgehog 3" and "Mufasa: The Lion King" duking it out for supremacy. In the early going, "Sonic 3" triumphed over "Mufasa" at the domestic box office, but things have changed since then, with "Mufasa" topping the charts several days over the holiday corridor, while posting huge numbers overseas. But this seemingly led to an unexpected conspiracy of sorts — one that is completely unfounded and untrue.

As the above screenshot of a since-deleted tweet from Frack's Sonic Deals indicates, several accounts across Twitter and other social media platforms noted that daily numbers on both Box Office Mojo and The Numbers, the two biggest websites for tracking box office, had not been reported for "Sonic 3" after December 29. The insinuation is that someone — be it Disney or these websites — was simply not reporting the numbers to make it look like "Mufasa" was outperforming the competition handily. This is simply untrue.

"The reason for the Sonic omission is due to the New Year's holiday," Brian C. Ellerman, Data Collection Manager for The Numbers, told /Film. "All the studios report (or don't report) differently from basically Dec 20-Jan 2, so with some, it's kind of up in the air, and then all of the past numbers will be reported at once, which is very common this time of the year. We suspect these numbers will be reported either today or tomorrow. That said, we will definitely get them into the database as soon as they arrive!"

So that's that, at least so far as the explanation goes. Unfortunately, there is a little more here that needs unpacking because this conspiratorial thinking never should have cropped up in the first place.

The above tweet from Frack's Sonic Deals states that it was clued into the lack of "Sonic 3" daily numbers by the account LonelyGoomba. Indeed, the account in question did flag the lack of reported numbers in a tweet saying, "Sonic 3 isn't even listed on the daily box office anymore. Disney clearly paying the website to sabotage Sonic 3 to make Mufasa look better smh." However, just below that in the replies, the account also stated, "(I'm joking about Disney bribing them)."

(I'm joking about Disney bribing them)

— LonelyGoomba (@LonelyGoomba) January 1, 2025

Even so, replies from other users said things like, "Your joke has some truth" or "You're probably not wrong, honestly. It's Disney." Despite the joke, people were ready to believe that Disney would somehow intervene with daily box office reporting. To what end, I must ask? As of this writing, "Mufasa" has made $342.5 million worldwide, while "Sonic 3" has earned $210.5 million. "Sonic 3" is slightly ahead of "Mufasa" domestically, but it's close. 

"There's no conspiracy because both films are performing relatively well," Scott Mendelson, an industry-leading box office analyst who runs The Outside Scoop on Substack, told /Film. "'Mufasa: The Lion King' has been earning slightly more amid the last few weekdays, but both films are performing as well as (if not better than) required in terms of their respective expectations and budgets."

While "Mufasa" has a bigger budget ($200 million vs. $120 million for "Sonic 3"), as far as the raw numbers are concerned, Disney's "Lion King" prequel has sold more tickets globally. What motivation does Disney have to mess with these numbers? "Disney isn't bribing Box Office Mojo and The Numbers to hide 'Sonic the Hedgehog 3' numbers, because neither film has anything to hide," Mendelson added.

Granted, 2019's "The Lion King" remake pulled in an astonishing $1.66 billion worldwide, becoming one of the biggest movies ever. So, on some level, the performance of this new movie so far could be viewed as a relative disappointment. But for a company as big as Disney, it's hardly enough to justify any meddling of this sort. Yet, for whatever reason, people were ready and willing to believe this. Was that motivated by hardcore "Sonic" fandom? Was it hatred for Disney? Either way, it's misplaced and unfounded.

Just to further extinguish this non-existent fire, a source close to Paramount confirmed to /Film that there was no meddling of any sort with the daily numbers for "Sonic 3." Most likely, by sometime this weekend, those daily numbers will be filled in on both websites and all of this will be forgotten. But it's important to point out that even a bit of research would have made it clear that there was no wrongdoing on anyone's part here.

A24's "Babygirl" and MGM's "The Fire Inside" charted last weekend but have not had daily numbers reported for the past several days. More importantly, "Gladiator II" and the wild Robbie Williams as a CGI ape biopic "Better Man", two other Paramount films, also charted over the weekend but have not had more recent daily numbers reported on either Box Office Mojo or The Numbers. This isn't limited to one film.

In the end, this might just be a small, strange section of the "Sonic" fandom trying to turn this into some sort of war. Fandoms are sometimes excessive, if not outright toxic. Just look at certain sections of the "Star Wars" fandom in recent years, or DC fans who hounded Warner Bros. for years to #ReleaseTheSnyderCut. It's not all fans who channel their energies into campaigns — just a small, vocal minority.

The other bigger point here is that box office numbers alone can be interesting, but they're almost meaningless without proper context. Just looking at the daily charts on Box Office Mojo or The Numbers can provide some base-level insight, but it's far from the whole story. This is a prime example of certain people running with information they don't fully understand. There is no conspiracy here, only irresponsible and false accusations based on nothing out of the ordinary.

"Sonic the Hedgehog 3" and "Mufasa: The Lion King" are in theaters now.