Sonic the Hedgehog is the next high-profile release of 2020, but how much did it cost to make? Video game adaptations have notoriously had a difficult time in Hollywood, with many failing to leave much of an impact. More often than not, entries in this genre are critical and commercial disasters, though the trend did reverse somewhat last year when Detective Pikachu hit the scene. While the live-action Pokémon movie wasn't as big of a hit as people anticipated (mostly due to the lingering presence of Avengers: Endgame), it was still well-received and grossed $433 million worldwide.
Paramount is undoubtedly hoping Sonic can follow suit and be a success, hopefully launching a new franchise for the struggling studio (which is coming off a stretch of box office bombs including Gemini Man, Terminator: Dark Fate and The Rhythm Section). One of the best ways to ensure a film has solid commercial prospects and stands a good chance at turning a profit is to keep costs down, and that's precisely what Paramount did in this instance. Sonic was relatively inexpensive to make.
The Sonic the Hedgehog production budget is approximately $85 million, a figure well below the aforementioned Detective Pikachu ($150 million). It's also much cheaper Paramount's recent genre fare like Gemini Man ($138 million) and Dark Fate ($185 million). The Sonic budget is this low even with the late stage character redesign, which was only $5 million or less.
Going by the old rule of thumb, Sonic would need to gross about $170 million to break even. Seeing that it isn't facing much competition for its target demographic (Dolittle, another family film, was a massive flop), Sonic may be able to cross that mark over the course of its run. There won't be another major film going after the same audience until Pixar's Onward opens in early March. At the same time, Paramount did the smart thing keeping Sonic's budget in check. This is one of the riskier box office bets of the year and isn't a sure thing (despite Sonic's popularity). Early box office projections pointed to a debut lower than Detective Pikachu, so it'll be interesting to see how Sonic fares at the multiplex.
The two films don't have much in common, but Sonic is in a similar boat to Birds of Prey in the sense that it doesn't need to break box office records in order to be profitable. Birds of Prey made unfavorable headlines last week for scoring the lowest debut in the DCEU, but it isn't a typical box office bomb because its budget was also low. So, Sonic could struggle to meet its modest expectations and still go down as something of a hit because Paramount didn't invest too many resources in it. And if this is the latest video game flop, then hopefully the studio won't lose too much money on it.
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