Box Office: ‘Sonic 2’ Is King, ‘Morbius’ Suffers Historic Drop
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 delivered this weekend an even more impressive opening than its predecessor, back in 2020, right before the pandemic struck.
The Jeff Fowler-directed sequel premiered this weekend in the U.S. after rolling out in some international markets last week, and brought in $71M, taking the #1 spot on the box office charts. This represents a 22% increase from the first movie’s opening weekend, back in February 2020. And remember that, at that point, the pandemic was not present at all, as Sonic the Hedgehog was released on the 12th. In fact, COVID-19 didn’t really have an impact on the movie’s numbers until its third week or so.
For that reason, the worldwide number by the end of its run will most likely be much higher than the original movie’s $320M. Moreover, given that the anticipation level for Fantastic Beasts 3 is pretty much non-existent, Sonic 2 has next to no competition until Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness blows up the box office on May 6th. The movie has currently collected $141M worldwide, so if things continue to go this way, we could be looking at Sonic 2 making over $500M worldwide by the time May rolls in.
This also validates Paramount’s decision to greenlight a third Sonic movie even before the second one opened in theaters, as they announced last month. Moreover, the company also announced a Knuckles live-action series in development exclusively for Paramount Plus, and aiming for a 2023 release date. While it may seem a bit rushed, let us remember that it’s coming from the same studio that announced a second Sonic movie right after the success of the first one, back in February 2020, and said they would be releasing it in early 2022. At the time, that felt optimistic at best, given the pandemic and the uncertainty of the past couple of years, and not only they delivered it, but also did it to great reception. The movie holds an impressive 97% audience approval on Rotten Tomatoes and got an A Cinemascore over the weekend.
The #2 movie at the weekend’s box office in the U.S. was Morbius, which collected $10.2M. This represents a massive 73.9% drop from week 1 to week 2, and it definitely undermines any party Sony Pictures may have thrown last week to celebrate their solid opening weekend numbers. Worldwide, the movie is sitting at $126M, and with a production budget of around $75M, the movie probably has to cross $200M due to the many delays and the amount of money the studio threw at the marketing campaign.
It’s not unusual for Sony’s Marvel Universe movies to have big drops, as Venom fell 56.4% back in 2018, and its sequel, 64.7% last year. But this is unheard of for any comic-book movie in recent memory. It’s a similar situation to the movies’ critic reviews, as both Venom movies had poor reception among critics (though fans apparently responded well to them), but Morbius is on a whole other level. It’s clear the priority for the studio was to get the movie out, but it’s unknown what their plans for the future of the character are at this point.
The Lost City continues to hold really well, collecting $9.2M and taking the #3 spot. Consider that this movie in its third week almost beat Morbius in its second week despite the fact the Jared Leto movie opened to a higher number. The Lost City dropped 37.7% this weekend in the States, just ahead of rolling into several overseas markets next week. Even though we are waiting to see how the response to the movie in the international markets is before popping the champagne, so far this is definitely good news for mid-budget action pics.
The flipside to that argument comes from Ambulance, the latest Michael Bay extravaganza that opened this past weekend in the U.S. to a very disappointing $8.7M. This may be attributed, at least partially, to a lack of marketing. The movie was made on a budget of $40M, and it’s very likely the studio spent half as much on marketing. It has been released over the past few weeks in several overseas markets and will continue to do so for the rest of April. So far, it has made $31M worldwide, which is not great news for the studio. With that budget, at the very minimum, they are looking at a $70M break-even point.
Rounding up the #5, The Batman took in another $6.55M, with its worldwide total now at $735M. It’s very unlikely at this point the movie will cross the $800M mark, but it could pass $750M next week. Needless to say, the movie is now highly successful, and Warner Bros. announcing a sequel is just a matter of when and not if.
Next week, the third Fantastic Beasts movie will debut in U.S. theaters, and projections are not good. The movie made over $50M internationally this weekend, but it probably won’t cross that threshold in the domestic market next week. Reviews have been far from great so far, and word-of-mouth isn’t even a thing. Between the J.K. Rowling controversy and the Ezra Miller incident from late March, The Secrets of Dumbledore could be the first Wizarding World movie to lose money.
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as authors like Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
