Weekend predictions: Sonic 2 set to top Sonic 1

April 8, 2022

Sonic the Hedgehog 2

Two long years ago, Sonic the Hedgehog posted an excellent $58-million opening weekend. A few weeks later, theaters were shut across North America, and it would be more than a year before another film (F9 in June, 2021) earned more than $50 million on opening weekend. This weekend, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 will become the third franchise film, after Venom: Let There Be Carnage and Spider-Man: No Way Home, to have a bigger opening than its predecessor since the start of the pandemic. Maybe the history books will record this weekend as the unofficial “end” of the pandemic era at the box office, with Sonic neatly bookending its beginning and end. Even if we have a few more bumps ahead, though, Sonic 2 should cruise past the first Sonic film, and could earn as much as $70 million this weekend.

As usual, when we have preview numbers for a film, the model produces two predictions, and our final number is a weighted average of the two.

Based on fundamentals, Sonic is looking in very good shape, and it could well double what the model would expect based on it being a returning film in a family franchise. Aside from Disney’s blockbusters, no film like this has opened with more than $55 million in many years, so $6.25 million in previews on Thursday is a welcome surprise, and should set the film up for something well over $60 million. Our final prediction is $65 million—the weighted average of the fundamentals and previews predictions.

Ambulance’s $700,000 in Thursday previews is almost exactly what the model expected based on the performance of action thrillers and Michael Bay films in recent years. The weighted average of the two predictions this morning is $11.4 million, which is a respectable number and should be enough for a place in the top three.

The final prediction of the weekend is probably the trickiest. Everything Everywhere All At Once has had a spectacular run in limited release, and is getting a lot of buzz. But that doesn’t necessarily translate into huge business when a film goes wide, as the table above shows.

My gut feel is that Everything Everywhere will do a little better than the prediction, and the fact that it packs more action than most of the comparable films may well help it. Could it emulate 1917 and maintain a theater average over $10,000 as it expands wide? Probably not, but I can see it topping $5 million this weekend.

Overall, we’re looking at a healthy weekend, with Sonic the Hedgehog dominating, but a reasonable variety of options for moviegoers. After a disappointing end to March, we should see the market as a whole bring in over $100 million for only the third time in 2022.

Correction: The original version of this article said Sonic is the second franchise film after Spider-Man: No Way Home to outperform its predecessor since the start of the pandemic. It’s the third: Venom: Let There Be Carnage did so too.

Filed under: Weekend Preview, Everything Everywhere All At Once, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Ambulance