Box Office Wrap Up: Sonic Grabs Golden Ring.

The Blue Blur apocalypse avoided, Sonic becomes the most successful video game adaptation debut ever.

What a difference a weekend – and untold millions in re-shoots – makes! After howls and jeers at the state of the CG in the first trailer, Sonic the Hedgehog went back to the workshop. Critics and industry insiders still considered Sega’s mascot dead-on-arrival at theaters, like so many video game adaptations before him. Then Sonic ran circles around everyone.

This Week in Box Office History.

The box office jumped 22% compared to last year, and 19% compared to last weekend. The Presidents’ Day weekend tends to be robust, having hosted huge premiers for films like Black Panther, Deadpool, and The Lego Movie. Compared to those, Sonic may not rank, but he did help push the box office up compared to last year and broke a milestone in the process.

With a prediction-busting 57 million dollars, Sonic the Hedgehog shoved aside Nintendo mascot Pikachu as the biggest video game movie premier. That marks a pretty impressive run for a normally poisonous genre: Detective Pikachu, Rampage, and even Angry Birds 2 have all hauled in hefty profits. Warcraft eventually ended up positive after being bailed out by China, and despite little coverage, the new Tomb Raider was a money-maker.

Top Film One Year Ago: Alita: Battle Angel.

Top Film Ten Years Ago: Valentine’s Day

Top Film 40 Years Ago: The Last Married Couple in America.

We finally get to where we can look back to the oldest weekend data! Anyone remember this movie!?

Top Three Films.

Sonic the Hedgehog ruled the box office. Not only did it pull an upset with a hefty 57 million dollar opening, it also landed well with critics. Sitting at 67% on Rotten Tomatoes, it is the third highest video game adaptation rated on RT, just behind Detective Pikachu and the first Angry Birds movie.

Second place belonged to Birds of Prey, which added 17 million dollars to its haul. Despite a worrying start, the film has benefited from a robust foreign release, raking in 145 million dollars world-wide.

Another new film, Fantasy Island, netted 12 million dollars. That’s roughly double the film’s production budget. That’s probably a good thing, as the movie boasts horrendous review scores. Chalk it up to another cheap horror flick cashing in on the relatively barren winter movie schedule.

Other Films.

Our third wide release, The Photograph, landed in fourth place. The film took in 13 million against a 16 million dollar budget. While that could spell trouble for a niche romantic drama, the film received mostly favorable reviews.

The final wide release, Downhill, rolled down the hill and got stuck in the last-place snowbank. The comedy remake of a recent Swedish film, Force Majeur, Downhill found itself snowed in by negative reviews and audience scores.