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Detective Pikachu's global opening weekend tops $160 million

The latest video-game inspired movie is actually doing pretty well for itself despite some concerns about early trailers.

Josh Hawkins

May 13, 2019 12:00 PM

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Video game movies do not have a good history when it comes to being successful or well-liked. However, it appears that the latest video game to make the transition to the big screen could be a huge success. Detective Pikachu opened up this weekend, raking in over $160 million and astonishing the competition.

If you haven’t followed the rise of Detective Pikachu’s popularity over the past few years, then you might not understand the appeal behind a movie about a talking Pokemon that solves crime. Despite some critique about earlier trailers, Detective Pikachu appears to be taking off with fans, having garnered over $160 million in just the opening weekend. This is a huge win for Warner Bros. and Legendary as Detective Pikachu has picked up the biggest opening weekend for a video game movie ever.

The closest runner up to this amount was the 2001 Tomb Raider movie, which pulled in roughly $150 million its opening weekend. It appears that Detective Pikachu has broken the curse of video game movies in North America, though the movie has still received some mixed reviews from critics. If you’re still unsure of the movie, then you can check out some of the reviews over on Rotten Tomatoes to see what critics and fans thought about it. It currently holds a 63% ranking on the Tomatometer, with an 85% audience score based on 2,050 ratings.

We’ll continue to keep an eye on Detective Pikachu as the movie continues to play in theaters. Are you excited about the film? Have you seen it already? Did it live up to your expectations or would you have liked to see it play out differently? Let us know your thoughts on the movie in the comments below and be sure to keep up to date on all the latest Pokemon news by heading over to our Pokemon hub.

Josh Hawkins

Guides Editor

Joshua holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and has been exploring the world of video games for as long as he can remember. He enjoys everything from large-scale RPGs to small, bite-size indie gems and everything in between.