“Sonic” Narrowly Repeats Over “Call of the Wild”

By: Keaton Marcus

Diving into the weekend, Sonic the Hedgehog slid more than expected, but still narrowly won the weekend for a second time straight, continuing its rock-solid performance. Adventure film The Call of the Wild overperformed in second place, but still has ground to cover internationally. Holdover Birds of Prey continued to fall steeply, topping new release Brahms: The Boy II, which edged out Bad Boys for Life.

As mentioned, Paramount’s video-game adaptation Sonic the Hedgehog topped the charts once again with an estimated 26.3M in ticket sales, dipping a reasonably high 55% from its powerhouse debut—but still topping an impressive 106.6M domestically after 10 days in release. The film is pacing around 12 million ahead of Detective Pikachu, which finished with 144.1M, the biggest video-game adaptation of all-time. This record seems pretty simple to get.

Internationally, Sonic earned another 38.3M from many material markets, pushing its foreign total to 96.5M and it’s worldwide bout to 203.1M. There were also a couple new openings, which were led by Russia with an estimated 6.3M—however, the UK remains the film’s biggest market at 19.1M. With an 85M budget, the flick needs about 240M to break even, which seems definite in this case.

In runner-up, we saw 20th Century Studios’ Harrison Ford-starring The Call of the Wild which overperformed with 24.8M for the opening, topping the conservative 15-20M pre-weekend expectations. Being released in 3,752 theaters, the movie averaged a solid, if unspectacular $6,615 per-screen. In comparison, the 135 million production opened ahead of the likes of Eight Below (20.1M) and recent release Dolittle (21.8M), but didn’t have the popularity of the Scooby-Doo adaptation (54.1M), or even its sequel Monsters Unleashed (29.4M). The four movies above have an average multiplier of 3.3x (I predicted an 80M finish for Dolittle), which would mean a close of around 83M, but it’s high audience approval may suggest something closer to 95-100M.

Overseas, The Call of the Wild kicked off its international release with only 15.4M from 40 material markets, contributing to a mere 40.2M for the global launch. Leading the way was a 2.6M start in France, followed by the UK (1.9M), Mexico (1.4M) and Russia (1.2M). Next weekend we see releases for many key markets including Japan, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Finland, South Africa, Taiwan, Thailand, Argentina, Uruguay and Venezuela. It also opens April 16th in South Korea. With the expensive cost, the movie needs around 300M to break even, which seems pretty bleak as of now.

Review wise, critics thoughts were pretty mixed, despite leaning a little to positivity, and audiences loved the movie. On Sweet and Sour we gave it a so-so 60/100 “sweet/sour”, calling it a “visually impressive, but uneven family adventure.” RottenTomatoes had similar thoughts, with critics giving it an approval rating of 62% “Fresh” based on 131 reviews with a consensus of: “It’s undermined by distracting and unnecessary CGI, but this heartwarming Call of the Wild remains a classic story, affectionately retold.” Audiences, however, gave it a 90% approval rating on RT and an excellent A- CinemaScore.

Thirdly, we saw WB and DC’s Birds of Prey continue its sluggish performance with just 7M in its third weekend, dropping a steep 59% and reaching only 72.5M after 17 days in release. Overseas, things aren’t looking great either as the flick added another 10M from 78 markets, for an international gross of 101.2M and a worldwide cume of 173.7M. The film needs to cap the 250M mark globally to break even.

In fourth, there was other new release STX Entertainment’s horror sequel Brahms: The Boy II which continued the dismal year for the genre with only 5.9M over the weekend from 2,151 locations. The 10M production also started off overseas in 23 markets with an estimated 2.2M for a global launch of 8.1M. Reviews were horrible and audiences gave it a mediocre C- CinemaScore.

Rounding out the top five was Sony’s Bad Boys for Life which nearly grossed 5.9M, dropping 49% from last weekend and topping 191.1M, hopefully topping the 200M mark by next weekend. Internationally, the movie added another 8.1M for overseas earnings of 200M and a worldwide haul of 391.1M.

Next weekend, we see yet another horror movie that should easily take the top spot. It’s Universal’s reboot of The Invisible Man which is being released in over 3,500 theaters with expectations that are around 20M+.

TOP FIVE:

Sonic the Hedgehog
The Call of the Wild (2020)
Birds of Prey
Brahms: The Boy II
Bad Boys for Life