How the Sonic Movie is a Role Model for Future Films

A little over a month ago, Paramount had finally released the Sonic the Hedgehog movie out into theaters, and many Sega fans, myself included, enjoyed the movie and its adaptation of Sonic himself. Since the film's release, it has made over 306 million dollars worldwide and became the highest grossing film based off of a video game, crushing Detective Pikachu. But things were not looking so great for this movie back in April of 2019, when the internet had gone completely berserk over the first trailer and how Paramount had depicted Sonic before the movie’s release.

When the first trailer for the Sonic movie was released back in April, the blue blur was sporting a design that wasn’t quite accurate to how he looks in his games. The movie Sonic looked far more realistic in ways that would have made anybody feel uneasy. The ugly design gave Sonic human-like anatomy and muscles, as well as human teeth, which everyone pointed out constantly. This controversial design gave Sonic the Hedgehog a very bleak future up until the director of the movie, Jeff Fowler, responded to the internet’s outrage with a tweet promising a redesign for Sonic as well as a delay for the film. Fans all over the world were relieved and waiting anxiously for the new trailer and design. Once December came around, a new trailer and more accurate design was released to the public and almost everybody loved it. Sonic looked like Sonic and not some sleep paralysis demon, and the film’s future was looking great for once. The movie’s backlash set an example for how Hollywood should deal with movies for the future. Listening to fans is not common in the film industries, and Paramount taking the criticism from the people shocked everybody.

Those who were involved with making the film showed a large amount of passion towards it as they have grown up with Sonic before he became a multimedia icon, which made the redesigned movie that much more enjoyable to fans of Sonic. The studio was willing to delay the film from November of 2019, to February 2020 so that there would be no crunch time for animators, and satisfied fans of Sonic the Hedgehog. When everybody involved with making a movie feel genuinely passionate about the project, the outcome is a film that not only fans of the franchise can enjoy, but those who are new to the franchise can enjoy too.

Article by Josh Mason