Celebrations rang out over the weekend as Sonic The Hedgehog officially passed the Birds of Prey at the box office. Despite the media and twitter hate mobs’ attempts to get the movie to fail as their feminist darling Birds of Prey had, the movie went on to out gross Birds of Prey’s opening weekend by a wide margin. A fact I felt confident would occur and led to not shoving out multiple “Sonic succeeds” articles over the course of the weekend. After all, a victory is most savor able when it is absolute and unspoiled by pre-celebration.
Where Birds of Prey drew in a just over $33 million domestically, Sonic has gone on to gross $58 million domestically during its opening weekend before doubling the Birds of Prey’s opening by jumping today with $70,000,000 domestically as reported by Forbes. As of this writing, the day is far from over so that $70 million is going to increase throughout the evening hours as more show up to the theater for Presidents’ Day.
Internationally the movie hasn’t done as well only grossing $43,000,000 compared to Birds of Prey’s $83,600,000 international figures. It should be noted that the movie has yet to launch in Japan or Russia, and its Chinese release has been shelved as a result of the quarantine. After another week and with the final three markets’ showings the international box office is likely to surpass the already peaking Birds of Prey internationally.
That Sonic already sits at $113,000,000 after only four days and Birds of Prey needed over two weeks, mountains of media and social media support to creep up to its still not breaking even $145,618,302 is telling where the audience interest lies. Sonic’s numbers are in no part small figures. Though they are far from Avengers: Endgame mega blockbuster figures, they have broken a record of their own becoming the most successful opening weekend for a video game based movie to date. Dethroning Detective Pikachu who previously held the championship belt.
A fact that the cast and crew are already celebrating, thanking the passionate fans who came out in droves to make the record breaking figures possible.
In the words of Sonic- Ummm, meow? AHHH!!!#SonicMovie is #1 in the world & had the biggest domestic opening all time for a video game movie!
It’s all because of the fans that we are here. Thanks for your feedback, your passion & for your love of Sonic. You did this. Thank you! pic.twitter.com/eCaH4V79Ur
— Ben Schwartz (@rejectedjokes) February 16, 2020
Many of those who went to see it, myself included, did so in order to reward the decision to listen to fans’ concerns rather than bash them over social media. Rather than bashing fans as other casts have, all the leads in the movie have come out praising the backlash the initial trailer received, as reported by Fox News.
Apparently few of the cast actually believed this movie wasn’t going to enjoy any level of success, until they stared in amazement at the sheer volume of fans either making fun at the trailer or talking about how horrifying it was to behold. In their own words to them it was a great thing.
Jim Carrey, who plays Dr. Robotnic, said…
“It turned out to be a co-op where everybody was in on the creation. I think everybody felt good about it ultimately because [director] Jeff Fowler [had] no ego involved at all. He just went, ‘These people grew up with it, and it’s important to them that we get it right.’ And I think it was just a much better movie because of it.”
The leading live-action male actor in the film, James Marsden, mentioned…
“I got to sort of watch all that unfold and it put a massive smile on my face because I was like, that is the fan base, that is the passionate fan base who care and wanted to be right and wanted to feel good,” … You want to make everybody happy and get it right.”
And Sonic himself, Ben Schwartz, stated…
“We had no idea if anybody even cared about the property. When that trailer came out, the idea that all of these people were so passionate and cared so much and had ideas was this huge rush to us because like, ‘Oh, we have something special here. We can make this so special’ and stuff like that. So it was almost like an energetic boost for us to be like, ‘Okay, we’re on a nice little course now, let’s figure this out.”
As for the movie itself, I found it to be okay. It keeps the pacing and comedic levels set in the trailer throughout the entire experiencing, but it isn’t a movie that will blow your mind. Though some will inevitably criticize the mixed-race couple, it was actually rather charming to see a pro-family, stick by your man, female character in a movie. Tika Sumpter does a fine job acting, perfectly complementing the movies “bro” vibe and pro-community slash family leanings.
Overall the movie was comfy to sit through, and even better knowing your rewarding a cast and crew that continues to show basic decency towards their audience. A rare commodity from the soapbox railing progressives out of Hollywood.
