How Much Money Did The Sonic Movie Make

Sonic The Hedgehog Movie Budget: How Much The New CGI Cost

Sonic the Hedgehog is Paramount's latest attempt at a box office hit, and it cost considerably less to make than some of the studio's recent flops.

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 whenDetective Pikachu hit the scene. While the live-actionPokémon movie wasn't as big of a hit as people anticipated (mostly due to the lingering presence ofAvengers: Endgame), it was still well-received and grossed $433 million worldwide.

Paramount is undoubtedly hopingSonic 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 includingGemini Man, Terminator: Dark Fate andThe 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.

TheSonic the Hedgehog production budget is approximately$85 million, a figure well below the aforementionedDetective Pikachu ($150 million). It's also much cheaper Paramount's recent genre fare likeGemini Man ($138 million) andDark Fate ($185 million). TheSonic budget is this low even with the late stage character redesign, which was only $5 million or less.

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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'sOnward opens in early March. At the same time, Paramount did the smart thing keepingSonic'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 thanDetective Pikachu, so it'll be interesting to see howSonic fares at the multiplex.

The two films don't have much in common, butSonic is in a similar boat toBirds 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.

More: Sonic the Hedgehog's Redesign May Not Be Enough to Save the Video Game Movie

Sonic the Hedgehog (2020)Release date: Feb 14, 2020

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Chris Agar (5490 Articles Published)

Chris Agar is a news editor for Screen Rant, also writing features and movie reviews for the site as one of Screen Rant's Rotten Tomatoes approved critics. He is a graduate of Wesley College's Bachelor of Media Arts and Master of Sport Leadership programs. In 2013, Chris was hired to write weekly box office prediction posts in conjunction with the Screen Rant Underground podcast's Box Office Battle game and his role expanded over the next few years. In addition to covering the latest news and hottest movie topics daily, Chris has attended numerous media events for Screen Rant, including San Diego Comic-Con, delivering content his readers care about. He credits Star Wars and Toy Story with launching a lifelong fascination with movies that led to his career, and now he has a wide range of cinematic tastes, enjoying the latest Hollywood blockbusters, Oscar contenders, and everything in between. Chris' favorite film genres include sci-fi/fantasy, crime, action, and drama.