It set a record for the second highest opening result of the year in North America
After two years of disobedience, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 once again began its journey to the big screen.
Continuing the story line of the previous game, in "Sonic the Hedgehog 2", the protagonist Sonic once again confronted the villain Dr. Egghead (Kim Carey), ben Schwartz and James Madden and other actors have returned, the first director Jeff Fuller also regained the guide tube, and the core creative lineup remained basically stable.
In North America, "Sonic the Hedgehog 2" set the second highest opening result of the year, and after two weeks of release, it exceeded the 100 million yuan mark, providing impetus for the theater to maintain a high level of operation; overseas, "Sonic the Hedgehog 2" also topped the list in many countries, boosting its global box office to $230 million, ranking among the highest-grossing Hollywood movies of the year.
The North American premiere surpassed the previous game, and the game adaptation continued to win
According to The-Numbers, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 grossed $6.25 million at zero, slightly higher than the previous week's Doctor of the Night: Mobias$5.7 million. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 landed in 4,234 theaters in North America, earning $72.11 million in its first weekend and $17,000 in revenue per museum. That was second only to The New Batman's $134 million, the second highest premiere of the year. In the face of the strong performance of "Sonic the Hedgehog 2", "Doctor Night: Mobias" plunged 73.8% the following week, and it was no longer able to hit the Goal of more than $100 million in North America.
At the same time, "Sonic the Hedgehog 2" also achieved a leap on the basis of the previous game: in the 2020 "Valentine's Day" file, "Sonic the Hedgehog" opened in North America for $58.02 million, and accumulated to $146 million before the theater closed, and the global harvest exceeded $300 million.
In fact, Sonic the Hedgehog still holds the North American box office record for a game adaptation, ahead of the releases of Uncharted ($145 million) and Detective Pikachu ($144 million). For distributor Paramount, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is the fourth film to top the charts this year, including Scream 5, Fools Forever and Lost City.
Judging from the wind reviews, the Rotten Tomatoes freshness rating of "Sonic the Hedgehog 2" was 67%, and the audience hit an A on CinemaScore, showing that the media and fans were positive about it. Another potential advantage of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is the scarcity of family-oriented films: since the release of "The Voice of Joy 2" in the "Christmas slot" last year, new films aimed at family audiences in North American theaters have been discontinued, and the most powerful "Youth Metamorphosis" has switched to streaming media, leaving plenty of room for the main family fun "Sonic the Hedgehog 2".
In addition to "Sonic the Hedgehog 2", "Outlaw Ambulance" starring Jack Gyllenhaal became a foil, and the premiere was even less than 9 million US dollars, setting a new record for Michael Bay's directorial career. The word-of-mouth masterpiece "Instantaneous Universe" expanded from 38 theaters to 1250, and the weekend revenue soared nearly 5 times month-on-month to $6.06 million, while the freshness of Rotten Tomatoes was still as high as 97%, becoming another case of A24 releasing a small-cost film.
Entering the following week, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 remained a solid nugget, slipping 59.4% at the weekend box office to $29.3 million as the number of theaters rose slightly to 4258, surpassing "Fantastic Beasts: The Mystery of Dumbledore", which topped the championship with $42.15 million. Riding on the warming of the Easter holiday, the biweekly value of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 has risen to $119 million, and is expected to catch up with Uncharted this month and is expected to become the second North American film to break 200 million this year.
After both Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Fantastic Beasts: The Mystery of Dumbledore opened high, the North American weekend market remained above $100 million for nearly two weeks. It is worth mentioning that since the release of "The Lost City" at the end of March, the number one film in North America has opened for the fourth consecutive week has exceeded 30 million US dollars, and the last time this happened is back to October last year, showing that the process of box office recovery after the spring is accelerating.
At the same time, "Instantaneous Universe" continues to expand to 2220 theaters, boosting the weekend harvest by 2.1% to $6.19 million, indicating that it still has the potential to expand the scope of release in the future. Two other new films, Father Stu and Koral Golds 2, also made it into the top 10 of the list, with the latter earning $2.88 million in just 510 theaters, making it another Indian film to open the scoring after The Kashmir Archives and RRR.
It returned to the screen after two years and witnessed the ups and downs of the global box office
From the first "Sonic the Hedgehog" to the present, the global cinema line has experienced a two-year period of ups and downs, to "Sonic the Hedgehog 2" seems to have finally completely come out of the haze.
In March 2020, just five weeks after the release of "Sonic the Hedgehog", North American theaters began to close on a large scale, and offline formats entered a frozen moment. Although the summer big screen was difficult to restart, the admission flow was no longer as bustling as before, and only "Creed" and "Crazy Primitive 2" barely exceeded $50 million in the second half of the year, so "Sonic the Hedgehog" firmly occupied the north American annual list, after "Jedi X-Men: Speed Pursuit" debuted at the beginning of the year.
Entering 2021, with the gradual relaxation of the "restriction order" and social distancing policies, coupled with the gradual return of Hollywood studios to the window period, North American theaters ushered in a slow recovery stage. From "A Quiet Place 2" opening the 100 million yuan mark again after 16 months, to "Shangqi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" winning four weeks in a row and exceeding $200 million, the big screen exclusive screening has become a catalyst for the accelerated rebound of the box office. At the end of the year, "Spider-Man: Heroes Without Return" was even more record-breaking, boosting the annual market in North America to jump by 113.4% year-on-year, and exhibitors who had faced cash depletion ushered in the dawn.
Since the beginning of this year, mainstream special effects blockbusters have completely abandoned the synchronous experiment of the theater network, and the big screen has regained the highland of competition in the film industry. In March, "The New Batman" won $134 million in its first weekend, and the cumulative north American total exceeded $300 million three weeks after its release, driving the total revenue of the month to climb to $578 million, an increase of 409.1% year-on-year.
Driven by Dr. Night: Mobias and Sonic the Hedgehog 2, the North American market topped $200 million in just 10 days in April, surpassing last year's entire month of harvest. As Sonic the Hedgehog 2 continues to run high in the following week, three films in North America have joined the billion club this year, and "Fantastic Beasts: The Mystery of Dumbledore" is also expected to join.
As of the 17th, the total box office in North America has accumulated to $1.696 billion, and it is expected to stand at the $2 billion mark at the beginning of next month, more than 3 months ahead of last year's collision time. According to The-Numbers' latest forecast, North American cinema revenue will rebound to $6.7 billion in 2022, or about 50% from last year's level, thanks to the abundant supply of new films in the summer slot. If this forecast is confirmed, the North American market will recover to about 60% in 2019.
As Hollywood blockbusters flock to the big screen, overseas theaters have also experienced a steady recovery. Last year's "Christmas file", with "Spider-Man: Heroes No Return" earning $1.892 billion as an opportunity, the offline box office in Europe, East Asia and Latin America rebounded rapidly, pushing all over the world to gradually get out of the two-year downturn.
This momentum continued after entering 2022, with "The New Batman" temporarily leading the global box office with $751 million, and "Uncharted" and "Sonic the Hedgehog 2" also sold more than $200 million, becoming the main force in multinational screen screenings.
Among them, "Sonic the Hedgehog 2" debuted overseas a week earlier than North America, setting off a box office whirlwind on the big screen in many places. According to comScore, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 has landed in 55 countries and territories, and the global cumulative total reached $230 million three weeks after its release.
From the opening figures, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 has a good income in the UK (US$6.54 million), Mexico (US$6.09 million), France (US$6.03 million), Brazil (US$3.4 million), Australia (US$2.8 million), Germany (US$2.23 million), Spain (US$2.22 million) and Italy (US$1.63 million). In late April, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 will also be expanded to the United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, India and Poland, and is scheduled to land in Japan by August, and the introduction of the mainland has been finalized.
Sonic the Hedgehog 2, which debuted in two years, not only once again provided the audience with a visual experience of extreme speed and madness, but also injected new impetus into the process of continuous recovery of global cinemas, becoming a witness to the film industry from the bottom to the return to normalcy.
Text | Chen Hao
Edit | Zhang Youfa