«Detective Pikachu»: Yahoo News does a mistake... and no one really cares
Yahoo's own news portal messed up some math and celebrated «Detective Pikachu» as the most successful video game movie of all time. False alarm. Nevertheless, a sequel is reportedly still in the works.
«Detective Pikachu» is now the most successful video game movie ever made. At least, that's how Yahoo's news portal reported it. With a current world-wide box office of 436 million dollars, the Pokémon movie has officially trumped the previous leader «Warcraft». The latter made 433 million dollars, almost half of that in China alone. Nevertheless: apparently Pikachu is the new King of the Ring.
But as news about a changing of the guard at the top of video game movies spread like wildfire through gaming and moviegoing circles, one thing quickly became obvious: Yahoo News, to put it lightly, did an oopsie. The changing of the guard did not take place.
And it probably never will.
«Detective Pikachu» vs. «Warcraft»
Actually, it's quite simple. When news portals and industry magazines look for movie box-office results, they usually rely on figures from Amazon's Box Office Mojo. And there it is, black and white:
- Worldwide «Warcraft» box office: 433.6 Million dollars
- Worldwide box-office result for «Detective Pikachu»: 429.4 Million dollars
Blizzard's video game movie is still sitting pretty in first place. The real-time strategy game was brought to the big screen by movie studio Legendary Pictures – the same company that made «Detective Pikachu» in cooperation with Warner Bros., proving their knack for video game adaptations.
Source: Legendary Pictures
So what happened? This is how Yahoo justified their Pokémon calculation:
- USA box-office result: 143.414 million dollars, as of July 15, 2019.
- Box office results in the rest of the world: 286 million dollars, as of July 7, 2019.
Together, then, a worldwide income of 429.422 million dollars. Yahoo also added last weekend's box-office earnings from Norway, New Zealand, Slovenia, Portugal and Colombia to this figure. The numbers also come from Box Office Mojo: 6,994 thousand dollars. Apparently, they're not included in the «rest of the world» calculation from 7/7/2019.
Here’s the problem: 6,994 thousand dollars. Not millions of dollars.
So, of course, Yahoo added 6.994 million dollars to the rounded down 429 million dollars and came up with the 436 million dollars that «Detective Pikachu» allegedly made. Which just isn't true.
The Pokémon movie probably won't overtake «Warcraft» anyway: During the whole month of July, «Detective Pikachu» made an average of about 55,000 dollars a day. With sales declining. Pulling four million dollars out off... somewhere seems to be near impossible.
Despite the silver medal: a sequel is coming
Be that as it may: no other video game adaptation has received such good reviews as «Detective Pikachu» featuring Ryan Reynolds in the most prominent voice-acting role of his life. And even though «Warcraft» is still more successful worldwide – Pikachu is the undisputed number 1 in the good old USA. Compared to Pokémon's 143 million dollars, «Warcraft» earned only 47.3 million dollars on American soil.
That's why a sequel is already in the starting blocks, according to industry journal The Hollywood Reporter. With a script written by 22 Jump Street author Oren Uziel. A release date or the actors involved aren't yet known.
Speaking of which: A closer look at Box Office Mojo's table of box office earnings outside the USA shows that the money made from Norway, New Zealand, Slovenia, Portugal and Colombia from last weekend are already included.
So there's no need to add anything anywhere. A lot of noise about nothing.
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I'm an outdoorsy guy and enjoy sports that push me to the limit – now that’s what I call comfort zone! But I'm also about curling up in an armchair with books about ugly intrigue and sinister kingkillers. Being an avid cinema-goer, I’ve been known to rave about film scores for hours on end. I’ve always wanted to say: «I am Groot.»