Sonic is racking up millions of Rings this weekend.
The Sonic the Hedgehog movie blasted through the top of the box office with Sonic speed, grossing in $57 million in North America and $100 million globally.
According to Variety, the Sonic movie is expected to earn between $68-70 million through President’s Day, which will give kids who are out of school an excuse to beg their parents to take them to see Sonic.
The Sonic movie made an even bigger sonic boom on the big screen than gamers and everyone else alike expected it to, considering the long history of bad film adaptations of video games. It would’ve joined the ranks of the Super Mario Bros. movie and made at least $54 million less than it did had Jeff Fowler not listened to the Sonic fans’ outrage over the first movie trailer and redesigned Sonic.
The changes to Sonic’s movie design and the three-month delay it took to make it possible, thanks to Tyson Heese, earned the Sonic the Hedgehog movie a solid “A” on CinemaScore and knocked Birds of Prey off its nest. Ben Schwartz lifted Sonic’s super teen spirit with his youthful voice acting and Jim Carrey dipped Dr. Eggman into his manic comedic splendor — the same brand of comedy that launched his career in the ‘90s.
“The consumer always determines what is right and what is wrong. They made their voices clear, and we listened,” Chris Aronson, Paramount’s president of domestic distribution, said. “This movie exceeded [audience’s] expectations. That’s a testament to that reset and terrific performances by Jim Carrey and the entire cast.”
It may be safe to say that with Sonic the Hedgehog’s booming success at the box office thanks to massive fan feedback, nine months after the electrifying release of Detective Pikachu, the bad video game movie curse has been broken.
