In a tight race, it appears that the blue hedgehog outran a CGI dog for the box office crown this weekend, as “Sonic the Hedgehog” repeats as #1 ahead of “The Call of the Wild.”
Coming into this weekend, many were expecting last weekend’s champ, ‘Sonic,’ to easily run away from the new competition this frame and take home the #1 spot. With films like “Call of the Wild” (with its lackluster marketing) and “Brahms: The Boy II” (the sequel no one asked for) debuting, it was assumed that the blue hedgehog would dominate once again. However, Harrison Ford is still a hit with older folks and those people powered “Call of the Wild” to a surprisingly strong weekend, almost beating the video game adaptation. Almost.
In its second weekend, “Sonic the Hedgehog” once again topped the domestic box office, with a three-day total of $26.3 million, dropping a decent -55% from last weekend. That film was trailed by the aforementioned “Call of the Wild,” which earned a respectable $24.8 million. The latter film was helped greatly by its older audience, as the PG film saw 81% of its audience represent the 25+ crowd (via Deadline). For a PG film clearly aimed at families and a younger audience, it’s surprising to see such an adult crowd show up for “Call of the Wild.” But with a reported $135 million budget, the Harrison Ford film will take any money it can get its hands on.
Despite the solid weekend, with a budget that high, “Call of the Wild” needs to stick around near the top of the box office if it hopes to become profitable anytime soon. Now, you may have watched the trailers for ‘Wild’ and wondered where the $135 million production budget went? It appears that a large portion of the cost of the film went towards the extensive CGI that was used. Not only is the dog that is in the film completely CGI, but pretty much everything else (minus Harrison Ford) was, as well. The film, similar to Disney’s “The Jungle Book” remake, was shot completely on sets with no actual locations, outside of some exterior shots in California. The vast majority of the film’s environments were created with special effects. Thus, the big price tag.
And with mixed reviews (barely fresh at 63% on Rotten Tomatoes), the early buzz surrounding the film seemed to point to a huge bomb. Again, nearly $25 million isn’t blockbuster numbers, but the weekend did end up going better than many thought. Audiences sure did seem to enjoy the film, with a CinemaScore of ‘A-.’ We’ll just have to see how word-of-mouth-shapes up in the weeks ahead because in two weeks, the film will have some steep family-friendly competition with Pixar’s “Onward.’
READ MORE: ‘Brahms: The Boy 2’: A Terrifying Atmosphere Can’t Save This Hollow Cash Grab [Review]
The other major debut this weekend was the previously mentioned horror sequel, “Brahms: The Boy II.” After the first film turned a modest budget into a worldwide box office total of $64 million, STX was hoping that the formula could repeat with a sequel four years later. Shockingly (sarcasm), ‘Brahms’ wasn’t the huge hit the studio was expecting. Sure, the film has a single-digit millions budget, but after three days, the horror sequel only earned $5.9 million, barely securing the fourth spot in the domestic top 10. Not even including Katie Holmes is enough to get people interested in a second-tier creepy doll film. With a ‘C-’ CinemaScore and a Rotten Tomatoes score of 11%, ‘Brahms’ seems to be DOA.
The best news for distributors this weekend seemed to come from the limited releases that debuted. Leading the way in total dollars, “Impractical Jokers: The Movie” (yep, a thing), debuted in only 357 theaters and earned a respectable $2.6 million, barely missing the top 10 for the weekend. That’s a big debut for the TruTV series-turned-film. With hardly any major marketing and a budget that is sure to be small, this points to the big fanbase that ‘Jokers’ has amassed over the years.
READ MORE: ‘Emma’ Is A Clever, Frothy Take On A Jane Austen Classic [Review]
But the best news comes from “Emma,” which debuted in only 5 locations and earned a Per-Theater-Average of $46,000. That’s a great start for Autumn de Wilde’s film and might point to a solid wide release as it expands in the weeks to come.
Despite a cast that includes Kristen Stewart, Jack O’Connell, Margaret Qualley, Zazie Beetz, Anthony Mackie, and Vince Vaughn, Amazon Studios’ “Seberg” debuted in 3 locations and only earned a PTA of $20,162. Of course, that’s not terrible, but Amazon definitely would have liked to see the biopic score a much bigger debut.
Next weekend, the only major wide release is Blumhouse’s horror reimagining, “The Invisible Man.” It’s unclear if the film will break out and become the first horror hit of 2020, but we’ll find out soon enough.
Here’s the full domestic top 10 for February 21 to February 23:
- Sonic the Hedgehog – $26.3M ($107M Overall)
- The Call of the Wild – $24.8M (Debut)
- Birds of Prey – $7M ($72.5M)
- Brahms: The Boy II – $5.9M (Debut)
- Bad Boys for Life – $5.86M ($191M)
- 1917 – $4.4M ($152M)
- Fantasy Island – $4.2M ($20M)
- Parasite – $3.1M ($49M)
- Jumanji: The Next Level – $3M ($311M)
- The Photograph – $2.8M ($17.6M)