Weekend Box Office: Sonic The Hedgehog easily outpaces Harley Quinn and the Birds Of Prey

Gotta go fast indeed! In just one week, video game adaptation
Sonic The Hedgehog has almost managed to top the two-week total of its closest competitor, Birds Of Prey: And The Fantabulous Emancipation Of One Harley Quinn. That movie had a relatively rough launch last week, handily beating bad Boys For Life (because something eventually had to) but still falling short of the highs of DC’s biggest hits. It easily took second place over the Valentine’s Day weekend, adding a respectable $17 million to its take and bringing it to a total of $59.4 million. This was the blue hedgehog’s weekend, though, with director Jeff Fowler’s Sonic pulling in $58 million from lovestruck couples, chili dog fans, and people who like to play that game where you Google your name and “the hedgehog” to see what kind of amazing fan art comes up. Would the movie have performed worse without that extremely expensive redesign? There’s no way to know, but yeah, probably.

Hedgehogs aside, a few other movies did come out this weekend, with Blumhouse’s horror-themed take on Fantasy Island narrowly edging out actual romance movie The Photograph by just over $100,000 in their first weekend against each other—Fantasy Island made just over $12.3 million and The Photograph made a little blue hedgehog quill over $12.1 million. They both still beat Bad Boys For Life, which is still somehow one of the biggest movies of the year. It made almost $11.5 million over the weekend, a tiny drop in the bucket when compared to its $181.4 million total. After that, it’s just the same movies that have been big for the last few weeks, save for a surprise appearance from Best Picture winner Parasite, which pulled off a $5.6 million take even though you can just rent it digitally and watch it at home right now. Is it because director Bong Joon Ho wished on a lucky rock, or is it because the movie expanded to almost 1,000 more theaters in the last week? There’s no way to know.

You have go all the way down to the bottom of the top 10 to see Downhill, the Will Ferrell/Julia Louis-Dreyfus remake of Force Majeure that happens to be the only other major release of the week. It made $4.6 million in its opening weekend, which is not great, but it’s not like anyone expected Sonic to be a powerhouse.

For a more in-depth analysis of this weekend’s box office, visit Box Office Mojo.