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Sonic Rings Up Another Win

This weekend’s box-office tourney featured a showdown between PG-rated films, pitting defending champ Sonic the Hedgehog against new contender Call of the Wild. And if we were in the world of the old Highlander series of movies, someone would start chanting right now that “there can be only one!”

But when the CGI dust settled, three winners emerged: Sonic, Buck (the dog in Call) and families.

OK, so technically, the Sonic movie raced to the victory. The little blue hedgehog spun to an estimated $26.3 million in green, pushing its high score to $106.6 million.  That makes Sonic the fourth highest-grossing cinematic videogame-adaptation ever, and Box Office Pro tells us that it should pass No. 1 Detective Pikachu ($144.1 million) before its run is through.

But weep no bitter tears for Call of the Wild. Starring a 77-year-old Harrison Ford and a much-maligned CGI pooch, Call flew past most prognosticators’ estimates and earned $24.8 million in North America, paddling straight into a solid second place. Clearly, it was a good weekend for dogs and ‘hogs. (Hedgehogs, that is.)

Hollywood should perhaps take note that the weekend’s top films were both rated PG. And if you combine their estimated earnings, those two films out-earned the combined monetary might of the 46 other films in theaters.

Indeed, while the battle for No. 1 was pretty tight, we see a huge drop-off from those top two contenders to No. 3 Birds of Prey. The R-rated supervillain/hero movie earned just $7 million in its third weekend of business, boosting it total tally to $72.5 million. Harley Quinn’s taking it on the chin.

Meanwhile, the freshman fright flick Brahms: The Boy II could only scare up $5.9 million. That puts it in nearly a dead heat with Bad Boys for Life for fourth place. (Early estimates have Bad Boys sliding home with a $5,860,000 weekend, which would land it in fifth place if everything holds up.)