'Sonic the Hedgehog' has the biggest opening weekend ever for a video game movie with $57 million

Jason Guerrasio

Feb 16, 2020, 22:02 IST

'Sonic the Hedgehog' has the biggest opening weekend ever for a video game movie with $57 million

Paramount/Sega

"Sonic the Hedgehog."

Paramount's "Sonic the Hedgehog" won the domestic box office with an estimated $57 million ($68 million over by Monday).
The movie performed higher than the studio's projection of $40 million.
$57 million is the biggest opening ever for a video game movie, besting the $54.3 million opening by "Pokémon Detective Pikachu."
Best picture Oscar-winner "Parasite" took in $5.5 million over the weekend, after Neon expanded it to 2,000 screens. Its biggest weekend to date.
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Paramount finally has a box office winner, and it's thanks to a video game character and Jim Carrey wearing a silly mustache.

Following duds like "Gemini Man," "Terminator: Dark Fate," and most recently "The Rhythm Section," the studio is atop the domestic box office this Presidents' Day weekend with "Sonic the Hedgehog."

The family-friendly movie brought in an estimated $57 million on over 4,100 screens ($68 million by Monday). That's quiet a performance for a movie that Paramount only projected in the low $40 million range for the weekend.

It also is a nice rebound for a title that out of the gate was bashed for its portrayal of the iconic gold ring-loving character, Sonic. The CGI blue speedster had a different facial look in the movie's original trailer which led to an uproar online. The visual effects artists went back to the drawing board and created a version more true to how Sonic looks in his video games, which Sega launched in the early 1990s (Jim Carrey portrays the game's villain, Dr. Ivo Robotnik). The movie was pushed from a November 2019 release to this weekend so the team had enough time to redo Sonic.

With the $57 million opening, the $85 million-budgeted "Sonic" has the best opening weekend ever for a video game adaptation, passing Warner Bros.' "Pokémon Detective Pikachu," which had a $54.3 million opening in May of 2019.

Neon

"Parasite."

Box-office highlights:

Coming off its big Oscar night, including becoming the first-ever foreign language movie to win best picture, "Parasite" brought in a hefty $5.5 million in 2,000 screens. Its biggest weekend to date.
Warner Bros.' "Birds of Prey" dropped a steep 49% from its opening weekend, taking in $17 million.