Detective PIkachu Is Now The Highest-Grossing Video Game Movie Of All Time

‘Detective Pikachu’ has zapped past Angeline Jolie’s first ‘Lara Croft: Tomb Raider’ to become the highest grossing video game-based movie of all time worldwide.  The ‘Pokémon’ movie, which features the voice of Ryan Reynolds as the titular character, has now made $412 million, surpassing ‘Tomb Raider’s $357M haul.  This is, of course, not adjusted for inflation.  $139M of ‘Detective Pikachu’s gross came from domestic ticket sales.

The Warner Brothers film opened in the US and most other territories on May 10th.  It generated an impressive $58M during its opening weekend and got great reactions from viewers and even not-too-shabby reviews from critics (70% on Rotten Tomatoes).  However, thanks to the juggernaut that is ‘Avengers: Endgame’, it didn’t manage to hit #1 in the US, although it was #1 globally.

 

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‘Lara Croft: Tomb Raider’ opened in 2001, and was successful enough to generate a sequel, 2003’s ‘Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life’, although the charm appeared to have worn off, as it didn’t do nearly as well.  Last year, Warner Brothers attempted to revive the franchise with Alicia Vikander, replacing Jolie.  That version only made $274.6M worldwide, but a sequel is still in the works.  Will it reclaim the crown from ‘Detective Pikachu’?  Oh hell no.

Paramount has pushed the release of their ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ adaptation to next year after the internet reacted horribly to the first trailer, which featured a Sonic that was given human teeth and other human proportions.  Will that make more than ‘Detective Pikachu’?  Once again, no.  The ‘Sonic’ video game is very popular and spans multiple generations of fans, but ‘Pokémon’ is the biggest franchise worldwide when it comes to span and money generated.  Plus, to be honest, the negative reaction to the first trailer has already poisoned the ‘Sonic’ movie to a lot of would-be ticket buyers.

The only picture that MIGHT give ‘Detective Pikachu’ a run for its money is Sony’s ‘Uncharted’, but that’s iffy.  Tom Holland has been a crowd-pleaser as Spider-Man, but it remains to be seen if audiences will be compelled to see him in a different role, in a new franchise.  And while the ‘Uncharted’ video games are successful, they’re not even as ubiquitous as ‘Tomb Raider’ was at the height of its popularity.

For the time being, congrats, Pikachu!

 

Source: Comic Book Movie