The Blue Blur is back! Sonic the Hedgehog will be coming back to theaters in American and Canada for another shot at the box office, with the caveat being the film will be hosted in select regions and will only be available for a limited time. The announcement was made on the film’s official Twitter handle.
#SonicMovie is back in select theatres in the US and Canada for a limited time! https://t.co/Vz5NGjdkwqpic.twitter.com/qIiWAe4imh
— Sonic The Hedgehog (@SonicMovie) August 21, 2020
“#SonicMovie is back in select theatres in the US and Canada for a limited time!”
Sonic the Hedgehog is an adaptation of the best-selling Sega gaming series of the same name. The film follows the adventures of the titular Sonic, an extraterrestrial blue hedgehog who can run at supersonic speeds. Fleeing from a band of echidnas on his own planet, Sonic finds a new home on Earth. But his superspeed ability places Sonic in the crosshairs of Dr. Rotobnik. Now the hedgehog must run harder than he ever has before to defeat Robotnik and save his human friends.
The movie became the highest-grossing video game adaptation in America upon release, even though its box-office run was cut short by the global lockdown. Since then, the film has debuted on VOD, where it was also successful. A fresh, limited release across the US and Canada is the studio’s attempt at squeezing the last few drops of profit out of the film before it goes the free streaming route.
Theater chains will also be grateful for the business offered by the blue hedgehog. The theater business has been in the doldrums for months, with no respite in sight. Studios are hesitant to release new big-budget movies until they can be sure enough audiences will turn out to watch the offering.
Until quite recently, Tenet was being seen as the movie that will put theaters back on track, with Nolan’s hotly anticipated new offering expected to bring audiences back to cinema halls like in the old days. Unfortunately, the first few Tenet reviews have been mixed, and that might affect people’s decision to go out to watch Tenet.
Under such circumstances, theaters might have to rely on older movies to keep viewers interested for a while longer. Compounding their woes is the fact that more and more upcoming big-budget movies are preparing to take the video-on-demand route, starting with Disney’s Mulan, with other films like Black Widow and Wonder Woman 1984 rumored to be following suit.
It now remains to be seen if Sonic the Hedghog will give theaters some much-needed breathing space. It is ironic that a movie belonging to the much-derided ‘video-game adaptation’ genre, that was met with horror and scorn upon the release of the first trailer for featuring a disturbingly-rendered Sonic, is now being seen as the hope of the box-office.
For fans of the video game icon, the popularity of Sonic’s debut movie assures a follow-up sequel, that will hopefully make good on the teaser that was placed at the end of the first movie and introduce Sonic’s fan-favorite sidekick character Tails.