Guys, we are looking at 70 million for the weekend now. This is definitively the best video game movie opening of all time. https://twitter.com/BORReport/status/1229421975677755392?s=20
All of this is really, really exciting. I don't think anyone expected this from the Sonic movie, and it's pretty brilliant to see that this is where is ended up. What a turnaround. One thing you must note when looking at weekend opening figures is that Detective Pikachu only had a three day opening weekend, Friday through Sunday. Sonic has a four day weekend because Monday is presidents day. It's just worth keeping that in mind to make sure that the comparisons are fair. Sonic still wins out on the 3 day weekend with $57M to Pikachu's $54M though. I wonder where Sonic will end up in the long run. Pikachu topped out at over $433M. Can Sonic compete with that? Pikachu had a much larger budget than Sonic too; $150M compared to $87. Sonic's got a much wider profit margin.
The coronavirus is kind of screwing over the box office right now as movie releases in China have been halted. It's already extremely unlikely Sonic will ever see a (theatrical) release there, which means catching up to Pikachu on a worldwide basis is more or less impossible unless it really breaks out everywhere else. However, Sonic beating Pikachu domestically (in the US) is very much in the cards, and like you pointed out it came in at a much lower budget and so should be fairly profitable for Paramount and Sega. The studios get barely any money from Chinese box office sales anyway (about 25% I believe), so while that'll impact Sonic's overall gross it probably won't do much to hurt its profitability. If Sonic grosses over $200m domestically I'd have to imagine a sequel is all but guaranteed, they're crazy if they aren't already trying to lock down Carrey for another one.
Man, these last few pages have been surreal. In my head the fact that this movie would turn out to be just another mediocre video game adaption was all but confirmed...but apparently it's actually kind of good? Shit, I might actually have to go see it now. Talk about an unexpected turn of event.
I think Carrey mentioned that he's down for a sequel, so I can't imagine it'd be that hard. Hell the majority of the cast seem to have enjoyed their time with the movie from what I can tell.
My sister and I saw it yesterday. She hated it, because of how emotionally manipulative and juvenile it was. I agree with those points (why the hell does every single kids move these days, even Disney movies, have to have fart jokes?), as Sonic was way too on the nose about having no friends, and he came across as an annoying child more than a cocky teenager with an attitude. But, I didn't really hate it, in fact, it seems above average for a modern children's film, which I don't even watch, but I had the displeasure of seeing that new Minions and Spongebob movie trailers before the movie, and I felt like I was having a stroke watching them, so I'm sure this is waaaaay better than those will end up. But it still had a lot of things that irked me. I did greatly enjoy Carrey, and the post credits scenes make me hope for a sequel that brings things much closer to the actual Sonic franchise, and maybe Sonic's time spent with his newfound Earthling friends will be where he develops his attitude, and he'll grow up a bit too? To be honest, I'm more excited for the prospects of a sequel than I was this movie as it is, but I'm also well aware that it was on course to be way worse than it was. As an aside, the crowd I was with was just annoying. The person right next to me was a father who clearly wasn't interested, so he was constantly on his cellphone (I'm sick to death of this in theaters in general), and even used his freakin' flashlight at one point. Other people in the lower seats were on their phones a lot too, and the child sitting next to me wouldn't stop moving. Plus, when we left, a lot of people just left their trash in their seats... I mean, there are trash cans on the way out. Why in the world do so many people lazily leave their trash behind when it's no extra effort to throw it away on your way out??
Oh, and one last thing... Spoiler The use of the Sonic Mania FMV/trailer theme in the opening was a simple, but unexpectedly welcome cameo. Really glad to see those guys get that much broad recognition now.
Sonic had absolutely nothing to do MPC Vancouver closing. Anyone that knows anything about the state of Vancouver's film industry could have told you this, but I just had a chat with a few of the VFX leads last week and they told me the same. Some of them having lost their jobs in the closure, so they have no reason to lie about it.
I've been seeing a ton of twitter posts unironically saying "Sonic fans are so bad they can close studios," so... :specialed:
Back on page 35, I said: I kept stressing to stay optimistic back then during all the speculating. Heh. ...although I did do a fair amount of complaining myself after the first design was shown off... ...but NOW that we have a clue, and things turned out positive, I am guessing SEGA will jump back on the “Sonic Renaissance” bandwagon and strike while the iron is hot with news of a new major game. Seems apt.
Now that the real Sonic movie was out, let's talk about the Sonic movies we dreamt up as kids (spoiler alert: mine is better than yours).
What on Earth? Sonic The Hedgehog movie called ‘homophobic’ by Birds of Prey fans Read the rest to 'find out' more.
Fake. Nobody actually thinks this. It was probably stirred up by angry Sonic movie fans for some baffling reason.
The problem is it's not my place to be making broad public statements, and honestly the dialogue about the shitty treatment of VFX artists needs to continue. Even if the anger is misplaced this time, it's important not to shut the whole conversation down.
I am always 100% down for lizard people. now I actually hope this concept shows up in the next film. I get it, but I'm also super tired of people shitting on Sonic fans and being happy about the movie. The misplaced anger can inspire a lot of backlash against ordinary people instead of management, because I'm already seeing it lean that way as-is. (and got some already for pointing out the other factors too)
