Sonic the hedgehog Official Trailer
Sonic the Hedgehog is a 2020
adventure comedy film based on the
video game franchise published by
Sega. The film is directed by
Jeff Fowler (in his feature directorial debut) from a screenplay by
Pat Casey and
Josh Miller. It also stars
James Marsden,
Jim Carrey, and
Ben Schwartz as the voice of
Sonic the Hedgehog. In the film, Sonic teams up with a small-town sheriff named Tom as he attempts to escape
Dr. Robotnik and the government.
In 2013,
Sony Pictures
acquired the film rights to the franchise, and by 2014, had a movie
adaptation in development. Fowler was hired to direct in 2016. After
Sony put the project in turnaround,
Paramount Pictures
acquired it in 2017, and the majority of the cast had signed on by
August 2018. Filming took place between July and October 2018 in
Ladysmith and
Parksville both on
Vancouver Island, and in
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It is the first entry in a planned
film series.
Sonic the Hedgehog was initially scheduled to be released
in the United States on November 8, 2019, but was delayed to February
14, 2020 after an overwhelmingly negative reaction to the first trailer,
which was released on April 30, 2019. Paramount delayed the film in
order to redesign Sonic, whose original design drew the most criticism.
The redesign was shown in a new trailer that was released worldwide on
November 12, 2019. The second trailer was well-received for its tone and
humor with Sonic's redesign receiving particular praise with many
noting how similar it is to Sonic's main design in the games.
Premise
Sonic (
Ben Schwartz),
a blue anthropomorphic hedgehog from another world, comes to Earth to
escape malevolent forces that seek to harness his power of super-speed. After accidentally causing a massive
power outage and hiding out in the town of
Green Hills, Montana, Sonic is targeted by the government who then hire the tyrannical
roboticist Dr. Robotnik (
Jim Carrey) to hunt him down. Meanwhile, ex-
SFPD officer-turned-Green Hills
sheriff Tom Wachowski (
James Marsden) meets Sonic and decides to help him evade capture, collect his
rings and stop Robotnik from using Sonic's powers for world domination.
Cast
Additionally,
Natasha Rothwell, Debs Howard, Elfina Luk, Riff Raff,
Shannon Chan-Kent and
Garry Chalk have been cast in undisclosed roles.
Production
Development
Sony Pictures Entertainment acquired the rights to produce and distribute a film based on
Sonic the Hedgehog in 2013. On June 10, 2014, a
live-action animated film was announced as a joint venture between Sony Pictures and Marza Animation Planet.It would be produced by
Neal H. Moritz by his
Original Film banner alongside Takeshi Ito, Mie Onishi, and Toru Nakahara, and written by Evan Susser and Van Robichaux. In February 2016, Sega CEO
Hajime Satomi said the film was scheduled for 2018.
Blur Studio's
Tim Miller and
Jeff Fowler
were hired in 2016 to develop it; Fowler would make his feature
directorial debut, and Miller and Fowler would executive produce.Patrick Casey, Josh Miller, and Oren Uziel were writing the screenplay, while Casey and Miller wrote the story.
On October 2, 2017,
Paramount Pictures announced that they had acquired the rights after Sony's Columbia Pictures put the film into
turnaround. Most of the production team remained unchanged. In February 2018, it was announced that the movie would be released in November 2019.
Casting
On May 29, 2018, it was reported that
Paul Rudd
was in talks for a lead role as Tom, "a cop who befriends Sonic and
will likely team up to defeat Dr. Robotnik," but was later denied. A day later, it was announced that James Marsden was cast in an undisclosed role, but later revealed to be Tom Wachowski. In June 2018,
Tika Sumpter was cast.
Jim Carrey was cast to play the villain,
Doctor Eggman, here renamed to his original Western name of Dr. Robotnik. In August 2018,
Ben Schwartz joined as the voice of Sonic. A few days later,
Adam Pally and
Neal McDonough were cast Debs Howard and Elfina Luk joined the cast the following November
Filming
Principal photography took place from July 24, 2018 and ended in
Vancouver, Ladysmith, and
Vancouver Island
on October 16, 2018. Post-production and additional photography took
place in October in New York, where Carrey shot his scenes.
Visual effects and design
The visual effects are provided by
Moving Picture Company (MPC), Marza Animation Planet,
Blur Studio,
Trixter and
Digital Domain.The production team created a realistic version of Sonic using
computer animation, adding fur, new running sneakers (which turn out to be the
Puma Speed 500's in Red), two separate eyes, and a more humanlike physique. They used Ted, the living teddy bear from the
Ted films, as a reference to insert a CG character into a real-world setting. Executive producer
Tim Miller
said: "It would be weird and it would feel like he was running around
nude if he was some sort of otter-like thing. It was always, for us,
fur, and we never considered anything different. It's part of what
integrates him into the real world and makes him a real creature."
According to Miller, Sega was not "entirely happy" with the design of
Sonic's eyes.
On May 2, 2019, in response to criticism of the design, Fowler announced on
Twitter that Sonic would be redesigned. The November release date was delayed to February 14, 2020 as a result. Artist Tyson Hesse, who worked on previous
Sonic the Hedgehog
media, was brought on to lead the redesign. For the redesign, Sonic was
given larger and differently colored eyes, new running sneakers (based
on Women's Dare Mesh Sneakers made from
Puma,
which also resemble the original Sonic sneakers from the games), white
gloves, and a less humanlike body in order to resemble the character's
design in the video games.
It is estimated that the delay of the film and the redesign of Sonic
put the film $5 million or less over its original budget of $90 million
for a total of $95 million.
Music
In February 2019,
Tom Holkenborg, who previously worked with executive producer Tim Miller on
Deadpool, signed on to compose the score. It will be released alongside the movie on February 14, 2020.
Riff Raff, who has a role in the film, will also appear on the soundtrack. An original song titled "Speed Me Up" by
Wiz Khalifa,
Ty Dolla $ign,
Lil Yachty, and Sueco The Child will appear in the film's soundtrack; the single was publicly released on January 24 on
Atlantic Records.
Marketing
Sonic's initial design received heavy criticism from
Sonic fans for his overly
humanoid
appearance and lack of similarities to his game appearance. Fowler
confirmed on May 2, 2019 that his design would be changed, with the film
also being delayed for three months.
Test footage was screened at the
Comic Con Experience in Brazil on December 6, 2018. A teaser poster was released on December 10, 2018, revealing the silhouette design of Sonic. It received a mostly negative response from critics and fans,and was compared unfavorably to another 2019 video game film adaptation, Detective Pikachu, which had added fur and skin textures to the
Pokémon characters in a much more successful manner.
] His
humanoid appearance was described as evoking an
uncanny valley-type of repulsive response by viewers.Former members of
Sonic Team, who created the original
Sonic the Hedgehog games, also expressed surprise at the design.
A second poster was leaked online shortly after the release of
the first. Fans complained of a lack of resemblance to the games and
criticized the positioning of Sonic's legs, spawning an
Internet meme in which users recreated the position. The film's official Twitter account posted an image of Sonic behind a sign reading: "Can't a guy work out?" Images of the Sonic design were leaked in March 2019 to more fan criticism. Former Sonic Team president and Sonic co-creator
Yuji Naka was "shocked" by the design and felt the ratio of Sonic's head and abdomen was imbalanced.
[49] According to animator Max Schneider, Paramount expected that
Sonic fans would object to the redesign but that general audiences would not care, as had been the case with their 2014
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film. He said Paramount felt the design gelled with the real-world setting and characters.
The first trailer premiered on April 4, 2019 at
CinemaCon in Las Vegas, and was released online on April 30. It experienced a highly negative reception, with Gita Jackson of Kotaku calling it "horrific" and "a blight upon this weary earth". Sonic's design was criticized, particularly for his overly humanoid appearance, while some writers found the use of
Coolio's "
Gangsta's Paradise" out-of-place. Conversely,
CNET's Sean Keane praised the humor and references to the games. Within two days of its release, the trailer had been viewed more than 20
million times on
YouTube, and had received hundreds of thousands of "dislike" ratings which drastically outnumbered the "like" ratings. Paramount deleted the original trailer from its YouTube channel around the same time when the new trailer was released.
A second trailer revealing the redesigned Sonic was released on November 12, 2019.
The trailer received far more positive responses, with many praising
Sonic's new design. The tone and the humor also received positive
reviews. Naka said he felt the new design was "much more Sonic-like". Schneider said the redesign took around 5 months and was achieved without stressful overtime. The second trailer received the highest like-to-dislike ratio of any trailer on Google in the last three year
As a promotional tie-in for the film's release, the movie version of Sonic was added as a playable character to the
Sonic Dash and
Sonic Forces mobile games.
Release
Sonic the Hedgehog was originally scheduled to be released sometime in 2018 by
Sony Pictures Releasing under its Columbia Pictures label, but in February 2018, shortly after taking over the rights,
Paramount Pictures rescheduled it to November 15, 2019. The film was later moved a week earlier to November 8, 2019.
Following the announcement of the character's redesign in May 2019,
director Jeff Fowler announced that the film would again be delayed for
just one last time to February 14, 2020, to get "a little more time to
make Sonic just right."
The redesign was later shown in a new trailer released worldwide on
November 12, 2019. The film's world premiere took place at the
Paramount Theatre in Los Angeles on January 25, 2020.
Box office
In the United States and Canada,
Sonic the Hedgehog will be released alongside
Fantasy Island,
Downhill and
The Photograph, and is projected to gross $41–47 million over in its four-day opening weekend.
