Rhino Entertainment Original
Wen | Xiaofu Editor| Park Fang
Sonic the Hedgehog 2, which was officially announced to be introduced to the mainland last week, is now in hot spotlight in the North American market.
The sequel, which landed in North America on April 8, topped the North American box office with a first-weekend box office of $72.1 million in its first week of release, setting a new North American box office record for a game adaptation held by the series' predecessors.
After the second week of release, "Sonic the Hedgehog 2" is still in a solid momentum, and in the case of "Fantastic Beasts 3", it still ranks second in the North American weekend box office with a weekly score of 30 million + US dollars.
The film's current north American cumulative box office has approached $120 million, which is expected to challenge the North American box office record of the previous game. And "Sonic the Hedgehog 2", which exceeded expectations, also ranked third in the North American box office list in 2022, second only to the two blockbusters "New Batman" and "Uncharted Sea".
In the context of the difficult to encounter boutiques and the post-epidemic era, this blue hedgehog that accompanies many people to grow up seems to always be able to achieve success in the cinema market. What is the magic of it?
Twice popular in North America
Whether at the box office level or at the word of mouth level, the performance of "Sonic the Hedgehog 2" is very exciting.
In the same week of its North American premiere, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was also released in 53 overseas markets at the same time, earning $37 million in its first week. It also helped the film easily sky-top the global weekend box office charts with a total box office of $108 million in its first week. As of now, the film's global cumulative box office has reached about 230 million US dollars, according to the previously disclosed production cost of 90 million US dollars, it has long been easy to return the cost.
In addition to the opening box office performance that is more aggressive than the previous game, the reputation of "Sonic the Hedgehog 2" has also improved compared to the previous game. At present, the film has a Rotten Tomatoes freshness of 67% and a popcorn score of 97%, both of which are higher than the previous score. In addition, the film also received an A rating in cinema Score, the best-receiving of recently released films.
You know, for the series of movies, it is not difficult for the sequel to surpass the previous work at the box office, but word-of-mouth overtaking is much rarer. What's more, this is still a big IP film that has been criticized by fans on a large scale.
Judging from the feedback on the current social platform, similar to the previous game, "Sonic the Hedgehog 2" is still a typical family movie. The completion of the whole story is relatively high, and the viewing threshold for audiences of different ages is relatively low, which is suitable for all types of audience groups to watch movies.
Full entertainment has laid the foundation for the global popularity of this work, and made "Sonic the Hedgehog" another game adaptation IP with super gold absorption.
Why Sonic?
In IP movies, game adaptations seem to be in a somewhat awkward position all the time.
It does not lack a strong high-quality IP, but also always has an eye-catching head team and sufficient cost budget, since 1993's "Super Mario Bros." However, among them, there are only a few game adaptations that can become global hits. In many cases, even the return of the original is a problem.
From the quality of the film, the main creative lineup, to the market environment, the choice of schedule, the influencing factors are multifaceted, but it is certain that the most fundamental reason for the failure of each tribe to lose the film lies in the general audience group and game fans do not pay.
Even in the North American market, where there is a high degree of general acceptance of game modification, the problem of game modification persists. However, from the perspective of box office performance, the situation has improved in recent years.
2018's "Tomb Raider: Battle of the Origins", 19 years' "Detective Pikachu", 20 years of "Sonic the Hedgehog", and then this year's "Uncharted Sea" and "Sonic the Hedgehog 2", You Yiying has been favored by North American audiences for several consecutive years. In particular, the "Sonic the Hedgehog" series, which has boosted the market twice in a row, is not only good luck behind its excellent performance.
(Top 10 north American box office, data source THE-NUMBERS)
First of all, it is inseparable from a sufficiently large audience.
Sonic was born in 1991 as a brand new mascot designed by the well-known game company Sega against Nintendo. Since then, the spin-off game "Sonic the Hedgehog", which has been well known to players around the world, is also the world's earliest side-scrolling parkour game.
In the development process of more than thirty years since then, Sonic derivative games have continuously updated their gameplay and plots with the progress of the times, and have also successively launched IP derivative works such as animation and comics, continuously expanding their IP radiation range. Until 2019, Sega and Paramount Pictures officially opened a cooperation, officially opening the big screen journey of the blue hedgehog that has accompanied generations of people.
The second is respect for the fan base.
In the process of entering the big screen, "Sonic the Hedgehog" is not all smooth sailing. When the first trailer was revealed in the film's previous film, the original Sonic movie image disappointed many game fans. In the face of overwhelming negative voices on the Internet, the film's creative team and production company did not ignore the opinions of fans, invested millions of dollars in time to make emergency remedies, and also adjusted the release date of the film.
(Before and after the movie version of Sonic plastic surgery)
This small episode that occurred before the screening not only failed to become an obstacle to the first big-screen show of "Sonic the Hedgehog", but even made the game fans feel the sincerity and intentions of the film's producers. Sonic, who returned from plastic surgery, has also been affirmed by more audiences, laying a solid foundation for the film's subsequent box office all the way.
The most important point is that the direction of the film's content is properly controlled.
Based on the family temperament of the IP itself, "Sonic the Hedgehog" also continued this tone in the process of cinematization, and it is a more typical all-age work. The film uses a wealth of entertainment elements to package simple and easy-to-understand adventure stories, relaxed and casual, and for a popcorn movie, Sonic the Hedgehog is loyal to the original game is qualified enough.
From the positive word-of-mouth feedback, it is not difficult to see that in the recently released "Sonic the Hedgehog 2", the main creative team still adheres to the consistent creative rules and continues to conquer the global market with a comprehensive upgrade of entertainment. Such a steady and steady creative attitude takes into account the different demands of the fan group and the general audience group, and finally single-handedly creates an excellent commercial market prospect for this film.
Unknown domestic market
Compared with the two explosions in the North American market, the "Sonic the Hedgehog" series always seems to be unlucky in the mainland market.
The first work in the series, "Sonic the Hedgehog", was first scheduled for February 28, 2020 in China, which was two weeks later than the North American schedule. However, due to the outbreak of the new crown epidemic, theaters across the country fell into a shutdown, resulting in the film being forced to be rescheduled to be released on July 31, six months later.
As one of the first batch of imported films ushered in after the resumption of work in theaters across the country, "Sonic the Hedgehog" also faces multiple factors such as the limited sales rate of theaters in the early stage of resumption of work, the enthusiasm of audiences to watch movies has not yet recovered, and the large-scale leakage of streaming media resources. In the end, the film only grossed 19.936 million at the mainland box office, in stark contrast to the performance of overseas markets.
Two years later, the trend of "Sonic the Hedgehog 2" has once again swept the overseas market. However, although the film has been announced to be introduced to the mainland market, according to experience or will be able to meet the audience in the near future, but considering that the recent domestic epidemic has not yet ushered in an inflection point, the downturn in the film market will continue for a while, even if "Sonic the Hedgehog 2" can grab a good schedule, I am afraid it will be difficult to reach the rescue level.
Moreover, it is still unknown whether domestic audiences welcome the blue hedgehog as well as overseas audiences.
To a certain extent, it is still difficult for you to get out of the category of fan movies. Whether it is the number of IP audiences or the quality of film content, it all affects the market prospects of youyi film.
According to the performance of past game adaptations in the mainland market, domestic audiences are obviously more interested in game adaptation projects such as "Warcraft" and "Resident Evil", which are closer to traditional visual effects blockbusters. Among them, the cumulative domestic box office of "Warcraft", which was released in the mainland in 2016, reached 1.468 billion yuan, accounting for 51% of the global box office of the film.
"Detective Pikachu", which is similar to the positioning of "Sonic the Hedgehog" and has a wider IP domestic audience, received a total box office of 640 million yuan when it landed in the mainland market in 2019. Even according to the highest market expectations, "Sonic the Hedgehog 2", which has a slightly less influence on domestic IP, is afraid that it will be difficult to replicate the success of the North American market.
Of course, for the mainland film market that has now fallen back into the ice cave, whether it is a rescue or not, the influx of any high-quality project will be a shot in the arm.
After all, at the moment when cinema movies have become "luxury goods" again, being able to walk into the theater in pairs with friends and relatives has become the luxury of many ordinary people. And the practitioners who are in distress have been watching for too long.