America has fallen in love with the blue blur.
Sonic The Hedgehog retained the top spot at the North American box office one week after its impressive and surprisingly big debut weekend. The film brought in $26,300,000 this weekend, raising its total to $106,601,671. That means Sonic is now the fourth-largest video game adaptation ever. And it’s only in its second week, meaning it’ll drum a lot more business in the weeks ahead. Now, will it have enough speed to beat the current video game movie champ, Detective Pickachu ($436 million worldwide)? That’s unlikely but it is possible. Audiences — especially kids — are eating this thing up and even though it had a drop of 55% this weekend, Sonic is going to continue doing business for some time.
That being said, the film was nearly overtaken by another family-friendly feature: The Call Of The Wild. An adaptation of the classic novel, the Disney release has been well-advertised in the weeks leading up to release. Though kids might not be too jazzed to see Harrison Ford, they are jazzed to see that computer-animated dog. The movie earned $24,820,000 this weekend which put it hot on Sonic’s heels. However, the film has a budget of something like $135 million so it has a long ways to go before it’s profitable. It’ll need several more big weekends to make its money back. Plus it’s a very American film in terms of setting and the overall personality and theme. So you have to wonder how it’ll do overseas. But I have faith because I never count out a family film with a lot of colorful graphics and animated animals.
The only other new release on the top ten this week was Brahms: The Boy 2. If I’m being honest, I don’t remember the first Boy film but I don’t think I’m the audience for this horror movie. But, seriously, how many killer doll movies do we need? We are drowning in killer doll films. New rule: studios can only make horror flicks about murderous dollies if they talk and say smart-ass comments like Chucky. That’s it! No more! I’m drawing a line in the sand. Anyway, Brahms met expectations this weekend with a cool $5,900,000. It isn’t setting the world on fire but no one really expected it to.
The happiest news of the week was regarding Best Picture winner Parasite, which came in at number eight with $3,121,000. The film has now earned just shy of $49 million in North America which is quite huge for a subtitled South Korean black comedy. And its renaissance has likely just begun because people are flocking to see the film since its Oscar wins. Not only is it one of the best films of the year and a deserved Oscar winner, Parasite is also a legitimate hit.
Birds Of Prey stayed comfy in the number three spot but it is still not doing the sort of business WB hoped for. However, the fact that it hasn’t sunk like a stone is a pretty good indication that the people who have seen the movie like it. And that’s obviously very good news.
Jumanji: The Next Level is about to drop off the top ten after 11 incredible weeks. Bad Boys For Life continues to rack up impressive numbers, bringing it grand total to close to $200 million. 1917 has officially made over $150 million and Fantasy Island is inching over $20 million. Romantic drama The Photograph is about to depart after two weeks with a grand total of $17,644,640. It seems that people have abandoned that film after Valentines Day.
Next weekend brings us The Invisible Man which could end up being a huge hit. I have a good feeling that audiences will connect with the movie and it could play across multiple genders and age brackets. I wouldn’t be shocked if it surprises box office analysts. But, hey, I’ve been wrong before! Don’t make an ass of me, Invisible Man!
