Sonic the Hedgehog ends Marvel's decade-long run of having the highest-grossing superhero movie of the year. Based on the popular video game franchise of the same name, Sonic the Hedgehog was one of the last films to have a proper theatrical release before the ongoing coronavirus pandemic took a turn for the worse. Debuting in February, Sonic the Hedgehog proved to be a well-received family hit, grossing $308.4 million worldwide against an $85 million production budget. That success led to Paramount greenlighting a Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for an April 2022 premiere.
Usually, video game adaptations struggle critically and commercially, but Sonic the Hedgehog bucked that trend and ended up breaking records at the box office during its run. It even topped Detective Pikachu as the highest-grossing video game adaptation domestically, and that isn't the only milestone Sonic the Hedgehog was able to pull off. In what's been an atypical year at the multiplex, Sonic put an end to a tremendous Marvel winning streak.
Wikipedia's (hat tip CBR) list of the highest-grossing superhero movies each year has been updated to mention Sonic the Hedgehog is 2020's biggest superhero film (the logic being Sonic is a super-powered being). In the previous 10 years, dating back to X-Men Origins: Wolverine, a Marvel-related movie claimed that title. From 2010-2019, it was always a Marvel Studios release.
Obviously, Sonic the Hedgehog's place in history comes with a caveat. In a normal year, Sonic's numbers would have paled in comparison to the more high-profile superhero titles. However, due to the coronavirus pandemic, Marvel was forced to delay their upcoming Phase 4 movies, pushing Black Widow and Eternals into 2021. Given Marvel's prolonged popularity, both of those likely would have done very well at the box office and surely grossed more than Sonic the Hedgehog. Additionally, Sonic did not receive much competition from DC, with Birds of Prey ($201.8 million globally) the only one to hit theaters so far this year. Warner Bros. does have Wonder Woman 1984 slated for Christmas Day, but there's no guarantee it will be able to keep its date. That's the only superhero movie remaining on the 2020 calendar that has a shot of topping Sonic.
This isn't to discredit Sonic the Hedgehog's achievement, and nobody could have predicted how 2020 would turn out when the movie came out back in February. Sonic the Hedgehog was a film that at one point had questionable prospects (all the controversy surrounding Sonic's original design in the initial trailer) and ended up becoming a big winner. It set the stage for a fun franchise, and it'll be interesting to see where the series goes from here. As for Marvel, this isn't the way anyone envisioned their run ending, but the streak is an illustration of the immense draw they have with audiences and they'll be around for a long time.
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