It’s unusual indeed for a No 2 movie from a previous week to beat out the most expectant No 1 opening release, but Sonic 2 has actually managed it. With this rather unexpected Box Office upset, as least one thing seems clear- families are keen to get back to the theatrical experience. Brandon Blake, entertainment attorney at Blake & Wang P.A, has more on the holiday weekend’s Monday Box Office for us.
A Sonic Success
Paramount have managed a string of surprising pandemic successes, kickstarted by the relative success of the first Sonic movie in the difficult middle of 2020. Many credit the unexpected success of the revived Sonic franchise to be in their simplicity- there is no attempt at ‘all-time’ status or too much pretension in its own specialness (as we’ve seen some of the latest superhero movies bring to the screen), but just simple, clean, family fun. Likewise, many have noted that the latest child-centric Paramount properties have actually kept their eye on their younger viewers, not their parents, as the majority audience, despite an overall watchability for the whole family.
Whether or not you agree, Sonic 2’s on-screen success is quite definitely the fourth Paramount property to outperform expectations in 2022 alone. This Monday it managed to rake in $4.5M on Monday alone, outperforming Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore by $820,000.
Families Return to the Movies
While there’s a host of reasons for the startling mix-up, it’s hard to ignore the most major one. Something close to half of the K-12 schools were on break on Easter Monday. An Easter Monday that occurred in the Spring Break week, too. With DreamWorks Animation/Universal’s The Bad Guys also on the slate, that presents an attractive double option for younger family members looking for something to do that would still appeal to the adults chauffeuring them.
While, of course, some will argue that Fantastic Beasts is also a family-centric franchise, let’s be brutally honest- Harry Potter has not been the touchstone for this generation’s small children that it was for their parents, and the latter film franchise has player mostly to nostalgic millennials and early Gen-Z, rather than actual kids. That’s not to say that it’s performing badly per se- it’s still set to close somewhere around, and possibly over, $100M domestically and over $200M globally, which isn’t a poor showing at all in a marketplace that’s a little crowded with similar offerings right now.
However, as the pandemic slides into the rear-view mirror, the idea of ‘changing consumer habits’ keeping families out of the theaters is being proved nonsense over and over again. Sonic 2’s second Monday sees a 4.6% rise from its first, and 275% of the same day for the first film. Its current running cume sits north of $123M over 11 days.
Whether you’re a fan of the Sonic franchise or not, it does make clear how willing the critical family demographic really are to return to the cinema experience. Far from huddling in front of screens at home, taking children for a day at the movies remains a competitive family day out. Additionally, we already know that the 18-34 year old demographic has been carrying cinema attendance for a while now, so the idea that they-also the largest demographic for parents of small children- would bring the whole family along shouldn’t be all that startling.
Let’s face it. The eagerly predicted demise of the theatrical experience isn’t happening, and the only thing that presents a real threat to cinemas at the moment is the lacking content pipeline from studios, nothing more. Anything else is simply fiction to bolster the streaming model.
