‘Sonic the Hedgehog 2’ Nets $71M, Zips to the Top of Box Office Opening Weekend

The second installment of Paramount’s action-adventure film, “Sonic the Hedgehog 2”, proves to be a more than just a family-friendly film after it zips right to the top following its box office debut over the weekend, a good sign for Hollywood, which indicates that the public is ready to return to in-person viewing in cinemas.

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According to the reports, the second sequel to the US film adaptation of the 1992 Sega Sonic the Hedgehog video game franchise, raked in about $71 million during its opening weekend in 4,234 locations across the US and Canada. It also bested Sony’s Marvel adaptation “Morbius” and Universal’s Michael Bay action-adventure “Ambulance.” It unexpectedly made the biggest opening ever recorded for a video game-based film, outperforming even the original, which opened in February 2020 at $58 million.

Paramount and Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog 2 

“Sonic 2,” which brought back the director and writers from the first films, stars Jim Carrey’s cartoonish villain and comedian Ben Schwartz’s spiky-haired blue title character. 

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Thanks to the string of solid theatrical hit series by Paramount in 2022, “Sonic The Hedgehog 2” looks poised to be among the bigger hits along with three others, “Scream,” “Jackass Forever,” and “The Lost City.”

David A. Gross of Franchise Entertainment Research called it an “outstanding opening,” considering it is a sequel to a video game-based movie. 

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Chris Aronson, Paramount’s president of domestic distribution, agreed with Gross, saying, “The normal pattern domestically is that sequels slide a little bit. But we certainly bucked that trend.” He said it’s pretty remarkable for a sequel like Sonic 2 to open 22% above the first. 

Sonic 2 Reviews

Despite the criticisms that the sequel to Sega’s video game adaptation received, the “Sonic 2” got mixed to positive reviews from critics during its opening weekend. Even the audiences were very enthusiastic, and they gave the CG/live-action hybrid a vital “A” CinemaScore.

“The filmmakers did a great job of being in service of not only the general audience but Sonic fans themselves,” Aronson shared. “Many feel it’s a bigger, better film than the first one.”

Meanwhile, Paul Dergarabedian, a senior media analyst at Comscore, said, “If there was any question as to whether families were ready to return to the movie theater, the stellar performance of ‘Sonic 2’ resoundingly answers that question.”

According to him, the fact that families made up to 58% of the Sonic 2 audience turnout is proof enough that families are ready to go back out in the world.

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Dergarabedian said, “This says once and for all that families want to go back, and it’s a really good indicator of things to come for family films in 2022.” 

“Family audiences are one of the most important segments of the box office, so this is good news for other family films and the industry at large as we head towards the summer.” 

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Watch the full trailer of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 here:

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