Sonic the Hedgehog Cinematic Universe Thread (& Knuckles)

Spoiler

The audience at my theater was hyped at that so I think it'll be fine.

 

it feels more like a Sonic movie than the last two and personally I thought it was markedly better than 2. and I say this as someone who thought the wedding subplot is funny, but there is no subplot like that one in 3 and the film is better for it.

 

Looking at the Saturday numbers coming in so far. My best estimate for Sonic's weekend gross is between $75m to $85m range. Unless Saturday's numbers fall flat with Friday's and Sunday's grosses take a nose dive, I think it's pretty secure that Sonic 3 is going to beat Sonic 2's opening. I'll have to check in the morning to see the Saturday numbers updated to make a better guess, but even with a Sunday drop of 41% like Jumanji did in 2017, Sonic would still beat Sonic 2.

 

Anecdotally but I know several people who didn't watch Sonic 1 or 2 originally who already have gone to see Sonic 3 because the buzz ahead of release that this was a movie adaptation of Sonic Adventure 2 had reached them. As in, the word of mouth about this game has hit the 30-40 year old market hook line and sinker, where adults are openly talking about how this is a straight adaptation of basically the last time they payed attention to Sonic. It's pretty much the most I've seen Sonic in the average person's eye since, like, 1993.

 

Huh? Sonic Adventure 2 isn't even that old, it came out in- aw crud. Insert that Indiana Jones gif here.

 

I remember when I was younger and the Lion King hit, and Sega was riding high. The Lion King was a mega hit cartoon movie like I'd never seen before, it was by far the biggest cartoon movie I'd ever seen from Disney. It felt like it completely dominated pop culture for a while. It was one of those times when big movie critics from outside of kids media came about to praise it as a work of art, a triumph of animation sort of thing. If you had told me then that 30 years later Sonic would come back and completely stomp Disney's full-might big budget sequel to The Lion King head to head in the box office I would have never believed it.

 

Watched it last night with my family. I insisted we see it opening weekend for that fan filled theatre experience, ya know? Where people get all hyped and react to things happening throughout the movie. This movie felt like when I watched the Broly movie back in 2018, although that was an insane fan experience. This hit me the same though. I can't express how it felt to be served such a feast in the form of Sonic. Over 2 decades of waiting for this movie to be made, it just filled my heart and made the Sonic fan in me come full circle. I'm tearing up just writing this. The 8 year old me came to the surface last night, alongside my kids and it's that feeling that I can't help but be so grateful to the people behind this movie and franchise for bringing it all to life for us.

Jim Carrey nailed it in this one. EVERY. SINGLE. MOMENT. Keanu did as well with Shadow. The Shadow/Maria backstory was very well executed and breathed life into Maria as a kid being a kid with her best friend Shadow. The pain of her loss was that much more believable. The third act of the movie with Sonic and Shadow was the chef's kiss. My god. How the hell did they manage to actually give us this? I'm still in shock that they respected us and the source material so much to just get it so damn right. I'm just so happy that this is real. Sonic is back y'all. Let's savor this. We deserve this. We fucking deserve this. For those who haven't seen it yet, watch it. Love y'all.

 

You don't know how angry I am that the nearby theatre isn't showing Sonic 3 in English for at least the next two weeks. They made SA2, my favorite Sonic story, into a movie and I'm helpless as everyone around me keeps praising it. HELPLESS

It is good to hear they did a great job though.

 

The movie will debut in America Latina in 3 days (25th); I think that will definely help with the boxoffice.

 

I'm strictly only talking about domestic numbers. I don't dive into international too much.

Sonic came up short on Saturday. It looks like Saturday wasn't so hot for it.

Deadline is saying Sonic is going to finish the weekend at $62m

The last film that had a significant drop from Saturday to Sunday near the Christmas period was Aquaman with a 27% drop. That film grossed $30.1m on Friday, $21m on Saturday and ended with $18.5m on Sunday. The only other comparable film with a Fri-Sat drop that I found was Bumblebee with a 9% drop from Friday to Saturday ($7.6m to $6.9m). All the other comp films I looked up did not have drops going from Friday to Saturday. Based on what I'm able to see, Sonic 3 is within the 20% drop range.

Unless Sunday does crazy numbers, Sonic 2 will remain the highest opening film in the franchise. But looking at all the other comp films, no film had growth on Sunday, they all dropped above 10% except for Mary Poppins Returns with a 6% drop.

However, this is Christmas we're talking about. The opening numbers are not what matters, but the lengthy legs from the holiday period. School is out, Christmas is on Wednesday, there is another weekend that is going to be a busy. Sonic has room to run for a healthy run.

For those of you that want to see Mufasa lose

International Box Office is for Mufasa at $87.2m. $87m is great for any other movie, but this falls far below everyone's projections for this film. Initially the belief was that it would hit $120m internationally with a total $180m when adding in Domestic. The so-so performance compared to expectations now lines it up to $120m overall opening. The film carries a $200m production budget so Disney is going to need this to perform well in the long run. Sonic begins its international roll out next week. We'll see how that fairs.

 

I don't think this constitutes a spoiler since it's a cut scene, so I'll throw this into the main thread here.
Jeff Fowler revealed that a cut scene from the movie would've explained that Gerald stayed alive for so long by licking Shadow's quill and absorbing the Chaos energy.

 

This taste... is the taste of someone who's the coolest!

 

I don't see what everyone else sees in this movie... I felt so little all throughout. Not even anger over Shadow's voice.

They were surprisingly faithful with Shadow's motivation but it hits so much less when they pull it back for a PG rating (and then some...) and the imagery they pull from is such a surface level version of it.

I just... Man...

 

SA2 was rated E...

 

You can say the same about the first 2 movies, but nowhere in the ballpark of this one. It's really when you think about the fact that this came from a Hollywood studio and it turned out as great as it did. Even I had moments during the movie where I didn't feel anything, but it was probably because I was just watching so intently and in shock that it was even real. I was absorbing it in real time and during certain moments of callbacks/references, I just starting yelling in amazement. Jim Carrey and Knuckles made my entire theatre laugh throughout. To each their own I guess, but maybe you've become detached from it all more than you realize if you really felt nothing. Because my entire theatre felt it and it was a memorable experience.

 

Looks like it's not the first time SEGA is ahead of Disney.
I heard that Sonic was more popular than Mickey Mouse in the 90s.

 

Yes, but this was mainly a case of Disney being at a historical low at the end of the 80's and Mickey's relevancy being at an all time low and the beginning of their rennasance only starting to take hold. For people who weren't alive in the 80's and early 90's, it's kind of unfathomable how down Disney was at the time. They really weren't a big deal anymore until their string of hits beginning with The Little Mermaid. And even then, they grew leaps by movies -- it wasn't until The Lion King that Disney was basically back at full power again compared to their golden years. When Sonic was more popular than Mickey, Mickey wasn't very popular like most would assume.

 

UPDATE: Added additional Mufasa details

Sonic 3 wins the weekend with $62 million.

There was no increase in sales on Saturday. It opened to $25m on Friday. It dropped 24% for a total of $19.5m. On Sunday, it dropped 19% for a total of $16.8m.

While it is below Sonic 2's opening, this doesn't discount the fact that it beat all the initial projections of $50m weeks ago and it ultimately losing against Mufasa. Even if Sonic 3's legs end up being a little weak, the lengthy break will help it exceed Sonic 2's domestic total of $190m. We'll see how the international market plays once the film begins to roll out.

Males made up a majority of the audience with 59%. Age range of 18-34 made up 43% and Over 35 made up 21%. While Sonic didn't have IMAX or 3D screens, it did have other PLF formats like Screen X and 4D. Those showings made up 21% of the box office.

Moms showed up to Mufasa. Sorry single mom hunters. I wouldn't count Mufasa out yet however. Mufasa might have stronger legs than Sonic. It may have opened lower, but its drops between days are lower than Sonic 3. Sonic 3 could potentially be frontloaded as fans stop showing up for repeated viewings and general family audiences (which Mufasa is winning over Sonic) start choosing Mufasa over Sonic in the long run.

Sonic 3's Rotten Tomatoes score actually went up.

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A few more reviews came in pushing it higher. It's currently at 87% and is now the highest rated video game movie on RT, beating Werewolves Within from 2021. This could go up or down once more reviews come in, but at this point, the 80%+ certified fresh is cemented.

 

This is a small thing, but I really appreciate being in a time again where Sonic is very culturally important and respected as a franchise. It is clearly having an impact on game production too. This is the best position Sonic has been in since 1996 and I am really happy about it.

 

And it's all thanks to Shadow!

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