Sonic the Hedgehog 2 Sets New Opening Weekend Record for Video Game Movies

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is having the best opening weekend ever for a movie based on a video game. Paramount's sequel adapting the beloved Sega mascot is headed towards a $71 million opening weekend haul after a $26.5 million take on Friday. That's better than Fast 9's opening last year, and easily tops the $58 million that the first Sonic the Hedgehog movie earned when it opened in 2020. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is the fifth number one opening for Paramount Pictures during the pandemic, after A Quiet Place: Part II, Scream, Jackass Forever, and The Lost City.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is receiving middling reviews, sporting a "fresh" but not "certified fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes. ComicBook.com's Tanner Dedmon, in his review of the film, writes that the sequel is stellar but not necessarily an improvement over the first:

"Does all this make Sonic the Hedgehog 2 better than the movie before it? It's hard to say, but it's certainly much bigger and much more Sonic-y than its predecessor while managing to maintain brevity often forgone in adaptations like this. Not every joke hits, but even those that miss still add to Sonic's goofy charm. The path forward for Sonic and his friends is clear – and Elba's performance as Knuckles is a big green check on the live-action series that seemed questionable before – but the human characters and their roles need sorting out before the next film."

This weekend, other films on the box office chart include Michael Bay's latest, Ambulance, opening in fourth place, and The Lost City staying strong in third. Jared Leto's Spider-Man spinoff Morbius loses the top spot, slipping into second, and rival superhero flick The Batman lands in sixth. Multiversal indie sensation Everything Everywhere All at Once ranks in fifth place. This weekend's complete list of the top films at the box office follows.