'Sonic The Hedgehog' opening weekend box office runs rings around every other video game movie
Sonic The Hedgehog may be an empty cash grab slightly sweetened by an unhinged, perfectly calibrated Peak Jim Carrey performance, but it's apparently what the people want.
The long-delayed, redesigned live-action Sonic movie finally opened last week and promptly smashed the opening weekend box office record for video game film adaptations.
Blue Rat Creature: The Movie is estimated to hit $57 million domestically, with an extra $11 million projected for President's Day on Monday, and an overall global weekend take of $100 million. (There's no release date set in China yet — amidst the coronavirus crisis, lockdowns continue to hinder most everyday activities, which obviously includes going and sitting in large dark rooms in close quarters with a couple of hundred other people.)
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Sonic beat out 2019's second-cutest critter, Detective Pikachu, which set the previous record for the biggest three-day opening weekend for a video game movie according to Box Office Mojo. Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (the 2001 Angelina Jolie one) is bumped to third, and Angry Birds is down to a still-too-high fourth place.
Despite these numbers, it's possible that this was still a missed opportunity. If the cowardly filmmakers hadn't caved to the online outrage mob after the initial trailer and redesigned the main character to be less "creepy," "nightmare fuel-y," and "genuinely bone-chilling what the fuck," perhaps Sonic would already be a cult classic in the making in the vein of Cats.
Just picture the rowdy screenings of Sonic, with audiences pelting gummy teeth candy at the screens whenever you glimpse his horribly child-like incisors, and people wearing blue tights with red sneakers to show off their alarmingly muscular calves.
Caitlin is Mashable's Australian Editor. She has written for The Guardian, Junkee, and any number of plucky little music and culture publications that were run on the smell of an oily rag and have since been flushed off the Internet like a dead goldfish by their new owners. She also worked at Choice, Australia's consumer advocacy non-profit and magazine, and as such has surprisingly strong opinions about whitegoods. She enjoys big dumb action movies, big clever action movies, cult Canadian comedies set in small towns, Carly Rae Jepsen, The Replacements, smoky mezcal, revenge bedtime procrastination, and being left the hell alone when she's reading.
