Sonic 3Sonic 3Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is not just a box office hit, projected to dominate this weekend before Christmas, but its also a critic and especially audience hit.The reviews are coming in, and with over a thousand verified ratings on Rotten Tomatoes, Sonic 3 has a 98% audience score, one of the highest of any film this year, and tied with other animated films like Transformers One and The Wild Robot, which also have 98%s (and are worth watching by all ages). It also has a very solid 85% critic score. Heres how all the movies stack up:Sonic the Hedgehog 64% critic score, 93% audience scoreSonic the Hedgehog 2 69% critic score, 96% audience scoreSonic the Hedgehog 3 85% critic score, 98% audience score.Sonic 3Rotten TomatoesObviously, we know the curse of third films in trilogies, but Sonic has defied that, and this is the best-reviewed movie across all metrics. As for its potential box office, the first film made $319 worldwide, making it enough of a hit to warrant a sequel. The second film improved and made $405 million. If that trend continues, we could be looking at a half a billion dollar haul for the third film, and no doubt this will probably lead to even more films in the future, given the trajectory of the franchise here. Sonic 3 is looking to open with $70 million or so this weekend, which puts it above the first film and right around the second. More, if it surpasses these estimates.Sonic 3 brings back the OGs James Marsden and Ben Schwartz as Sonic, Idris Elba returns as Knuckles from the second film and now Keanu Reeves has been added as the infamous Shadow the Hedgehog, which it seems has gone very, very well. I havent gotten the chance to see it yet, but the trailers look awesome, and I guess it really panned out.The first Sonic the Hedgehog was one of the first batch of video game projects in the modern era that convinced people we were starting to break the video game curse of terrible adaptations. All three Sonic movies have done great, Super Mario Bros. was a megahit. Weve had incredible live action and animated video game shows like The Last of Us, Fallout, Arcane, Cyberpunk 2077 and Castlevania. This probably really kicked off with Castlevania in 2017, but that wasnt the wild breakout hit that Sonic was in 2020 in the same way.MORE FOR YOUSo, lets see what we learn about Sonic 4 in a few months, most likelyFollow me on Twitter, YouTube, Bluesky and Instagram.Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.