Sonic the Hedgehog 

Coming Soon

Sonic, the flagship character of the video game developer SEGA, is about to make the leap from consoles to the cinema with Sonic the Hedgehog.

The popular blue hedgehog was designed by Naoto Oshima and saw light for the first time in the video game Sonic the Hedgehog (1991) for the Sega Mega Drive console. The success of the character gave rise to a millionaire franchise that has more than 30 video games, several animated series and countless amounts of merchandise.

The film is directed by Jeff Fowler and it’s being made with a combination of computer animated motion capture and real actors, starring James Marsden as Sheriff Tom Wachowski, Jim Carrey as the fearsome Dr. Robotnik and Ben Schwartz, who gives voice to the charismatic Sonic.

Following the footsteps of the film Detective Pikachu (2019), also based on a video game franchise, the first Sonic the Hedgehog trailer was released a month before the premiere of the Pokémon movie. After the great reception of the creatures’ realistic designs in Detective Pikachu, Paramount Pictures expected the same results for his interpretation of Sonic. Unfortunately, the results were not as expected.

A wave of criticism flooded social media the days following the revelation of Sonic‘s design. Such was the amount of rejection that director Jeff Fowler announced on his Twitter account that Sonic would be redesigned, changing the premiere date from November 2019 to February 2020.

After an arduous redesign work, Sonic now looks more like its original design. Will the hedgehog’s supersonic speed be enough to win the audience’s favor once again? We’ll know when Sonic the Hedgehog hits theaters on February 14, 2020.

Enjoy our analysis on the failure of video game-based movies here