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Sonic the Hedgehog speeds past record for video game movie opening

There's no stopping Sonic the Hedgehog, as his theatrical debut speeds past Detective Pikachu to break the record for the largest three-day opening for a video game movie.

Ozzie Mejia

February 16, 2020 11:48 AM

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Gotta go fast! Gotta go fast! And Sonic sure went straight to the top of the box office, faster than anybody could have imagined. After an exceptional opening, Sonic the Hedgehog not only topped the weekend box office, but it also set a new record for movies based on video game properties. Unseating last year's Detective Pikachu, Sonic now stands atop the mountain for all-time high video game movie debuts.

"With an estimated $57 million three-day performance, Paramount's Sonic the Hedgehog topped last May's Pokemon Detective Pikachu to become the largest three-day opening ever for a video game adaptation," reads the Box Office Mojo report. "The film, based on the iconic Sega video game, is expected to finish around $68 million for the four-day holiday frame, which would be the fourth largest Presidents' Day opening ever, with some anticipating the film will top $70 million by the time the long, holiday weekend is over."

It's a happy ending for Sega's movie, which wasn't originally supposed to release on Presidents' Day weekend. The movie was delayed to this weekend back in May after its first trailer was largely met with scorn over the blue hedgehog's design. The studio went back to the drawing board and put together something far more palatable. Once the character wasn't such a nightmare to look at, audiences once again focused on the movie itself, which suddenly wasn't looking so bad. And with a 63 percent critics score and 95 percent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, it turns out that the movie was, in fact, rather good.

With a $70 million estimate for the holiday weekend expected, the Sonic movie should have little trouble finishing with hundreds of millions of dollars worldwide. It has a way to go before hitting Detective Pikachu's $350 million, Rampage's $428 million, and Warcraft's $433 million. But wherever the movie finishes, it should land in good company next to those theatrical blockbusters. At the very least, it will easily outearn its $85 million budget.

The Sonic the Hedgehog movie is in theaters now. If you're itching to play a Sonic game after reading this story, remember that there's a sale going down right now over on Steam.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?