Sonic's Third Movie Outing Gets A Speedy Digital Release This Week

It feels like these "only in theaters" movies last about 2 weeks before I can "buy" them on Apple on Amazon for $19.99. Which I won't do knowing at that point I can wait another week and rent them at no additional cost in 1 of the services I'm already paying for. I stocked up on a lot of Black Friday streaming deals this year. I'll probably watch "Borderlands" this weekend on Stars. Can't be any worse than the "Monster Hunter" movie. 😫

Kinda hoping this is false only so that the movie has enough time to make even more box office revenue. Sonic 3 may be sitting at 210 million but Sonic 2 made almost twice that. The movies need to remain profitable if we want more of them. (I know Sonic 4 is already announced but still)

That's WAAAAY to early for that...Movie has been out only 2 and a half weeks...

Not unexpected. The window for exclusivity be it theater, physical, etc has gotten a lot shorter over the years.

Watched the movie, its pretty good.

With how quickly Wicked Part 1 came out, I can see them doing a theatrical release of movies for about a month or 2, release the digital copies early and still have the physical release about 4 months after the movie.
My steelbook Wicked gets to me February 3rd. Ill preorder the 4k release for this film soon.

@rjejr : And that's obscenely overpriced given that the digital versions would only afford a fraction of the bitrate of the physical releases (and typically none of the special features either).

As a frequent theatergoer, the increasingly short gap between theatrical and digital releases is perplexing. Shouldn’t these movies be staying in theaters longer to make more money? Is digital so profitable that they want it out of theaters ASAP? There’s little sense in going to theaters these days when you can buy the movie outright in as little as 2 weeks unless you like the overall theater experience.

30 days seems to be the standard now, even the billion dollar Mario movie was released on digital after a month.

@omalleycat215 Agreed. There was some sense to it in covid times, but it's self sabotage for most films now.

took my nephew last night and he has stated today his absolute need to watch the movie every day, so for him this can’t come soon enough.. 😵‍💫

Well yeah! They gotta get the fourth one in theaters!

@omalleycat215 we probably go out to a movie twice a month. I don't think I've ever had my arm twisted by the wait for digital, but we are usually the kind of people that know which movies we are going to months in advance. The only time we will rent a digital release that is in theaters is if we have the whole family together. Because buying a couple of pizzas and beverages plus $30 is less than tickets for nine or ten people.

@rjejr Borderlands is worse.

Anyone else old enough to remember movies going to VHS from around 18 months to 2 years after the cinema! I think if you had SKY, which really was seen as a very very rich person thing to have, it went there after a year for certain films, but no less than that. I am thankful it is not THAT long anymore, but i do agree it does harm the theatre experience, and box office, if you can just wait a month for it. It was always quite an event when a big movie finally got a home release in a Blockbuster.

@VHSGREMLIN I disagree. Videogames movies after never been much of hit with both fans and critics. However, Sonic is one the rare few that has a great reception by fans, and mildly passable one by critics.

Is it perfect? No, but it's one the better adaptions in a long list of failures. You don't have to like it, but atleast there is some passion in there for trying to make an entertaining family franchise vs the long list of films that were cash grabs with no redeeming features other than brand recognition.

The fact these movies made is it as far, shows the people behind it do have some level of care. These films are a success for those who thought the videogame to movie medium was forever doomed for failure.

Sonic, Mario, The last of us (yes I know TV show), are showing there is success to be had in adapting videogames outside of their medium.

People at one point in time thought comics would be rubbish films and yet ironically your meme profile is the biggest comic book movie to ever exist.

Just like the early years of so-so Superhero folks, these are the early years for so-so videogame movies. With time and care they might one day be be the next super billion dollar film verse. Right now they are in it's "sorta getting there" phase.

@VHSGREMLIN

Who to believe? Rottentomatoes that rounded up all the reviews and have rated this the best video game movie ever made and also one of the best films of 2024 or a user on Nintendolife who hasn't even seen the film and just comes on Sonic articles to say how awful the series is....choices.

@TheExile285

european and most international numbers, havent been added or updated yet, if you look at the domestic numbers there's 30 mio gap between 2nd and 3rd movie, those numbers might not rise much though

In fairness every time I go to the cinema these days even on a recently released film the screening is only about 40% full. Doesn't make sense to keep in cinemas only now for too long

With so little out at the cinema nowadays, I can’t see why they wouldn’t just let it run.

@DripDropCop146 Right? Sonic fans are pleased, even with their notoriously high standards!

@VHSGREMLIN They’re kids films about a fast blue anthropomorphic hedgehog and his animal mates. I don’t think you really need to even watch them to know they’re not peak cinema; if you’re expecting something amazing out of them that’s on you

In this case I can see the point. By the end of January they will have hoovered up all the Christmas dollars. Once the kids go back to school and parents are doing the January penny counting they might be more pliable to a $20 digital purchase than a $50 trip to the cinema during the winter cold when nobody wants to go outside.

Ugh I hate it when movies kill their box office numbers like this. At least let it be there for a month and a half. This has been happening with so many of my favorite movies that came out this year

@VHSGREMLIN

Uh huh, sure mate.

@VHSGREMLIN sir, it’s called an opinion.

lol why are they doing that this early? This movie murdered Mufasa

Sonic's always racing to the bargain bin, be it its merchandise, games, and now movies. 😅

Amazon have it listed as "coming soon" here, but I pre-ordered anyway. No UK release date?

Think this will be the last one I watch. All my main fave characters have had their time to shine. Not really bothered about anything past Sonic Adventure 2.

Not had the chance to get to the cinema with the kids yet so it’s welcome news I can just get the home release now 😀

Sonic 3 is totally worth watching in the cinema.

@smeggysmeg No spoilers, but Number 4 appears to be heavily inspired by things that came BEFORE Sonic Adventure 2 gamewise. I do agree that SA2B is the peak of Sonic for me and always will be though.

@Arawn93 Huh? Mufasa has done $600m at the box office, Sonic 3 $420m.

Both still successes but I don't think Sonic "murdered" Mufasa in any way.

Not too surprised. It seems like more and more movies are coming out on digital just weeks after they release in theaters. In fact, the recent anime film "The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim" did just that, being released on digital just two weeks after coming out in theaters.

Probably a good thing, too, since the movie made only about $20 million at the box office against a $30 million budget. A movie has to make twice as much as its budget to break even, and three times as much to be a success. Anything less than twice its budget is a flop. But to not even make its budget back, that's a disaster.

Still, despite what the critics and haters say, it's a good movie, and I highly recommend it to everyone who enjoys The Lord of the Rings. Even my mother liked it, and she doesn't even like anime (mainly due to the art style, especially with how they draw the eyes).

It really doesn't affect or kill the box office numbers as you might think. Nowadays, about 70% of blockbusters box office is made in the first 4 weeks in the theaters (Sonic, Mario, Marvel movies and such). This rate has been highly increasing in the last decade.
Best way to keep earning over the movie is to go straight to streaming before the buzz is killed.
We have too much exposition to ads and what's the next big thing, things move way too fast (for the good and the bad)

The movies are being parted out at the sane rate as the relentless ***** Sonic games we have had to endure over the years.

@CupidStunt so they take 4 year breaks between films or are you just talking garbage?

@TeiGekiLord How is that even possible when the first movie came out 4 years ago, and we are now into the 3rd..... with the 4th in development.

Update of my first post. I forgot I wrote that post and was going to basically write that same post now, so instead I’ll just say “see post 1”. 😁

Oh and I’ll add, if I wanted to pay$19.99 for a rental I’d go see it in the $5 theater near me, or the Regal for $7 on Tuesday. I’ll watch Sonic 2 on Paramount+ like I did the first two. I need to watch Strange New Worlds new season eventually.

@SillyG “ and typically none of the special features either “

Sometimes when a movie arrives as included in a service I’m paying for I’ll go borrow the disc from my local library just to watch the extras. Disney+ is sometimes pretty good though. They added director commentary for Deadpool and Wolverine I still need to watch, and most of their own stuff gets a 1 hour making of documentary. I’m currently keeping an eye out for Agatha All Along.

@Maulbert “ Borderlands is worse “

Ok now I feel like you’re just double dog daring me to watch it. 😂

@SillyG The encoding for 4K stuff on services like iTunes and Movies Anywhere is pretty good these days. I have watched a few streaming releases on my 120" theatre screen and movies like Wicked look and sound very good (using Apple TV box). I am extremely picky with my audio/video as well. Do the 4K UHD disc releases look and sound better... yes... but it's marginal and most of the population would never notice the difference, especially on a 55 - 80" TV.

Also... $20 to watch a movie with your family is a fraction of the cost of going to the theatre.

@Mana_Knight

Yes, I remember movie releases taking forever to come out on VHS. Sometimes even when they became available to rent, they were never really able to be purchased and only came from distributors at $100 - $300 per copy. This was during peak VHS rental. During the DVD area, it seemed pretty consistent for movies to be available for rent/purchase at about 6 months.

As much as I previously enjoyed the cinema experience, I am actually a fan of the modern home release schedule. Even before COVID I was not finding my cinema experiences to be great. Assigned seating was a huge step in the right direction, but it seemed like projection/picture quality was lacking and ticket costs were going up. Once accustomed, to 4K content at home, movies started looking rather bad, even at the good cinemas near me. Budget showings exist, but then I am sitting in an empty theatre and/or a gross environment, with even worse projection/picture quality.

I now have a new house with a dedicated home theatre room in the basement. Perhaps it's anti-social, but I much prefer to watch any movie in my home theatre. I hate to admit it, but I'm not sure there is anything that would get me into a cinema again.

@CupidStunt someone doesn't realise that I'm pointing out their flawed Sonic bashing.

@TeiGekiLord Someone can't do math actually. First movie was 4 years ago... you said a 4 year break between films, but we have had 3 movies (with the 4th in development) . If the first movie was 2020, the 3rd 2024, how can there have been a 4 year break between movies....

Pretty much why I don't bother going to the movies anymore. When I was a kid it sometimes felt like years before movies came to VHS so I had a lot of incentive to keep going to theaters. These days it ranges from streaming day and date to a month or two after the theatrical release.

@rjejr Really. I'm trying to save you. Seriously, take your pick of rating sites, Metacritic, IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, doesn't matter. The Borderlands movie has worse review scores than the Monster Hunter movie. It's not just me.