Sonic the Hedgehog Sprints to First Place at the Box Office!

Paramount Pictures’ Sonic the Hedgehog shot like Cupid’s Arrow to #1 at the Valentine’s Day Weekend box office with a $57 million three day debut and a $68 million estimated four day. The impressive debut speeds past last year’s Pokémon Detective Pikachu to crown Sonic for the biggest opening ever for a video game movie. This is a huge win for Paramount and director Jeff Fowler, who took the poisonous response to the initial design of the character and pushed the movie back three months to redesign with all the Sega fans in mind. Clearly, the gambit paid off, with the film receiving an “A” CinemaScore and also raking in an estimated $43 million internationally over the four day for a worldwide total of $111 million.

After a lackluster first weekend, Warner Bros.’ Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn dropped 48% to the #2 slot with $17.1 million for the three day and $59.2 million domestically for a worldwide take of $145.2 million. While the film could ultimately wind up in the black, it’s certainly not the home run the DCEU needed.

Sony and Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island revamped the classic TV show as a horror movie and took in $12.4 million over the three day for a worldwide cume of $21.6 million, which certainly spells profitability for Jeff Wadlow’s $7 million dollar film.

Universal’s romantic drama The Photograph also debuted well with $12.2 million in the #4 slot, taking advantage of the Valentine’s date crowd with its rising stars LaKeith Stanfield and Issa Rae.

Meanwhile, Sony’s Bad Boys for Life fell three spots from #2 to #5, but only suffered a 5.9% drop from last week with $11.3 million. Domestically it has taken $182.8 million for a worldwide cume of $369.8 million.

Lastly we have Searchlight Pictures’ dark comedy Downhill starring Will Ferrell and Julia Louis Dreyfuss, which debuted at #10 to a disappointing $4.6 million from 2,301 theaters. Unfortunately this remake of the Swedish farce Force Majeure is the kind of quirky film that needs a lot of love from critics to bolster it these days, and with a 39% on Rotten Tomatoes it did not get the reaction it needed.

Which of these films did you see this weekend? Let us know about your Valentine’s Weekend moviegoing experience in the comments below!

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SONIC_2K-STILL-B – Ben Schwartz voices Sonic in SONIC THE HEDGEHOG from Paramount Pictures and Sega. Photo Credit: Courtesy Paramount Pictures and Sega of America.
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