Sonic The Hedgehog 2 and The Bad Guys overperform against expectations, as Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets Of Dumbledore starts to sink.
There’s plenty of good box office news around for Hollywood movie studios at the moment. Sony’s enjoyed a hit with the critically panned Morbius, whilst the Sandra Bullock-Channing Tatum-headlined The Lost City is bringing in sizeable audiences globally.
Yet it’s with family movies where, in America in particular, the box office has been surging. Sonic The Hedgehog 2 now sits at nearly $300m worldwide and should clear $400m by the time its run is complete, a financial upgrade on its predecessor (the third film is already on the way). Then, DreamWorks Animation’s The Bad Guys enjoyed a better than expected opening in the States over the weekend, helping itself to $24m. Films are, for the first time in a while, overperforming against expectations.
It’s given hope for a bumper box office summer, but it’s also thrown into sharp focus the struggles of the Fantastic Beasts franchise. The latest chapter, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets Of Dumbledore has lost ground very quickly at the US box office, where three weeks in its take sits at $67m. Add in the $213m it’s picked up outside of America, and the movie’s global gross is currently $280m.
For Warner Bros, the disappointment will be that the film doesn’t appear to be hanging on very well against the competition, and by distance its final total will now be a franchise low for the series. It feels a matter of time before Warner Bros, for a mix of reasons, now knocks this on the head and focuses its Wizarding World efforts elsewhere.
There’s basically a week left for it, and the other family choices, to make their mark, before Marvel sends along the first of its 2022 movies on May 6th. That’d be the small matter of Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness. Don’t bet against that closing in in a $1bn gross…
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