‘Sonic 2’ Breaks Video Game Box Office Opening Record With $67 Million-Plus Start

thewrap.com:

By comparison, the first “Sonic” opened to $58 million and grossed $319 million worldwide before the pandemic cut its theatrical run short. “Sonic 2” should blow past that mark, as families and gamers have given it glowing audience acclaim with an A on CinemaScore and 98% rating on Rotten Tomatoes to go with a 68% critics score.

While we won’t know until Sunday how the demographics break down, this result should be encouraging for both studios and theaters given that “Sonic 2” is the first family film to hit theaters since “Sing 2” back on Christmas week.

Theaters went through all of Q1 without any films to lure in kids after Disney moved Pixar’s “Turning Red” from theaters to Disney+, where it became the streamer’s highest watched film on opening weekend.

This sequel should continue to perform well over the next two weeks with kids out of school on Easter break; and while it will get competition in its third weekend in the form of Universal/DreamWorks’ “The Bad Guys,” theaters will welcome more family fare after being deprived of it for nearly four months, hoping that it will encourage families to get back in the habit of moviegoing even as the BA.2 COVID-19 subvariant continues to spread in the US.