Sonic the Hedgehog‘s commercial, and to a smaller degree critical, success is sending a signal to Hollywood and consumers alike. Following the similar success of last year’s endearing Detective Pikachu, Sonic the Hedgehog‘s impressive gross revenue shows that audiences have once again warmed up to the idea of video game movies. After a long streak of bad ones, Detective Pikachu and Sonic the Hedgehog are giving Hollywood an excuse to press forward in the endeavor.
We saw it with superhero movies; at the turn of the century, once X-Men and Spider-Man were released, audiences were so wowed by seeing their favorite superheroes on screen that they were willing to see film after film after film. From Iron Man until Avengers: Endgame, there was little breathing room when you include DC’s movies and more unconventional ones like Scott Pilgrim.
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Garnering over $50 million in its first three days of release, Sonic the Hedgehog was a clear success, as was Detective Pikachu. While it didn’t see the same level of success, the idea of Ryan Reynolds portraying a Pikachu was an overwhelming reason for prospective moviegoers to head to the theater.
Overall, the fans have had fairly mixed reactions to both of these movies. Neither were particularly daring in their approach to the source material, save for Jim Carrey’s somehow more cartoonish approach to Dr. Robotnik. In any case, the CGI was impressive enough in both movies, as were their acting performances, that most issues were overlooked. The movies didn’t insult the source material and were fun, popcorny adventures.
Given these movies’ success and consumers’ apparent forgiving of Hollywood for all those bad video game movies, we can likely expect a lot more of them. There are a bunch of movie adaptations planned right now. Everything from a Gears of War movie to a Five Nights at Freddy’s movie to a Metal Gear Solid movie is on the books right now, and the production of them may be sped up due to the sheer success of recent video game movies.
Prepare your pocketbooks – we might be moving from a decade of superheroes to a decade of video game movies.
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