Sonic the Hedgehog

Sonic the Hedgehog[a] is a 2020 adventure comedy film[8] 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 stars Ben Schwartz as the voice of the title character and Jim Carrey as Doctor Robotnik, as well as James Marsden, Tika Sumpter, Natasha Rothwell, Adam Pally, and Neal McDonough. In the film, Sonic teams-up with a local town sheriff named Tom to escape the government and defeat the despicable Dr. Robotnik, who wants to steal Sonic's powers for his robotics.

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 September and October 2018 in Ladysmith and Parksville, both on Vancouver Island, and in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It was initially scheduled to be released in the United States on November 8, 2019, but after an overwhelmingly negative reaction to the first trailer, Paramount delayed the film to redesign Sonic, whose original design was highly criticized. The redesign was shown in a new trailer, with Sonic's new appearance receiving praise.

Sonic the Hedgehog premiered at the Paramount Theatre on January 25, 2020, and was theatrically released in the United States on February 14, 2020. The film received praise for the cast performances (particularly Carrey's), Sonic's design and its faithfulness to the source material, but criticism for its plot and perceived lack of originality.

Plot
Sonic is an extraterrestrial blue hedgehog who can run at supersonic speeds. His caretaker, Longclaw the Owl, encourages him to hide his powers, but Sonic does not listen. The two are attacked by a tribe of echidnas (who are suggested based on the dreadlocks to be Knuckles tribe), who wound Longclaw. To protect Sonic, she gives him a bag of rings he can use to travel to other planets, using one to send him to Earth while she holds off the echidnas. Ten years later, Sonic lives in secret in the town of Green Hills, Montana. He idolizes the local sheriff, Tom Wachowski, and his veterinarian wife, Maddie. Tom has recently been hired by the San Francisco Police Department and is preparing to move.

Although he enjoys his life, Sonic longs for real friends. One night, he plays baseball by himself and, after realizing his loneliness, gets upset and starts running around the field. The energy Sonic emits creates an electromagnetic pulse that knocks out power across the Pacific Northwest. Baffled, the United States Department of Defense enlists roboticist and scientific genius Doctor Robotnik to help discover the cause of the outage. Robotnik discovers and tracks Sonic, who hides in the Wachowskis' shed. Sonic is discovered by Tom, who shoots Sonic with a tranquilizer and causes him to drop his rings into a portal above San Francisco. After Sonic awakens, Tom reluctantly agrees to help Sonic recover the rings. Robotnik invades the house, but Sonic and Tom escape. Robotnik comes across one of Sonic's quills and has Tom declared a domestic terrorist.

Tom and Sonic narrowly evade Robotnik on a number of occasions and grow closer as they journey to San Francisco. Tom realizes that the one thing Sonic wants is to have a real friend. Meanwhile, Robotnik slowly loses his sanity as his search for Sonic becomes more obsessive. Sonic disapproves of Tom's decision to leave Green Hills, arguing that he is leaving his true friends. Sonic is injured in an explosion shortly before the two arrive in San Francisco, where Tom is reunited with Maddie. Maddie helps revive Sonic, and the three travel to the Transamerica Pyramid, where Sonic's bag of rings landed. Robotnik and his robots attack them at the top, but Sonic uses the rings to teleport Tom and Maddie back to Green Hills before taking on Robotnik. Using the power of Sonic's quill, Robotnik achieves supersonic speed himself, and he pursues Sonic across the world.

Robotnik and Sonic's fight eventually makes it back to Green Hills, where Robotnik defeats Sonic. However, Tom intervenes, and Sonic regains his strength after Tom refers to him as a friend. Sonic reclaims the energy that Robotnik is using. With help from Tom, Sonic uses a ring to send Robotnik to a planet made of mushrooms. With Robotnik defeated, Tom and Maddie decide to stay in Green Hills and let Sonic live in their house with them. The US government also erases all evidence of the incident, including records of Robotnik's existence. However, an insane Robotnik, who survived his teleportation, begins plotting his revenge.

In a mid-credits scene, Tails, a two-tailed fox, emerges from a ring portal, searching for Sonic.

Cast
Additionally, Colleen Villard, the current voice of Tails in the video game series, reprises her role for the mid-credits scene.[19] Garry Chalk, who previously voiced Grounder and Robotnik in Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic Underground respectively, appears as a US military officer. Riff Raff has been cast in an undisclosed role.[20][21][22] Donna Jay Fulks voices Longclaw, an anthropomorphic owl and Sonic's caretaker.
 * Ben Schwartz as the voice of Sonic: An anthropomorphic blue hedgehog with supersonic speeds who is on the run from Robotnik and the United States government. Schwartz also provided the facial motion capture for Sonic.[9][10]
 * Benjamin L. Valic as young Sonic
 * Jim Carrey as Dr. Robotnik: A mad scientist and inventor who is after Sonic's super-speed powers for world conquest.[11] Carrey described the character as "a madman" and added saying; "He's got 300 IQ so it took a week and a half to prepare" and later said; "Robotnik wants to control humanity with the machines. Sonic is a power that he needs to control the world." Sonic nicknames him "Eggman"—his alias from the video game series—in reference to his egg-shaped robotic drones.[12]
 * James Marsden as Tom Wachowski: The sheriff of Green Hills who wishes to join the SFPD. He befriends Sonic and aids him in his quest to stop Robotnik. Sonic refers to him as 'The Donut Lord'.[13]
 * Tika Sumpter as Maddie Wachowski: Tom's wife who later helps him and Sonic evade Robotnik. She is a veterinarian and referred to as 'The Pretzel Lady' by Sonic. [14]
 * Lee Majdoub as Stone: A government agent who works closely with Robotnik.[15]
 * Natasha Rothwell[16] as Rachel: Maddie's sister
 * Adam Pally as Wade Whipple: A police officer in Green Hills and Tom's friend.[17]
 * Neal McDonough as Major Bennington: A soldier who holds a dislike to Robotnik.[17]
 * Frank C. Turner as Crazy Carl: A conspiracist in Green Hills who refers to Sonic as 'The Blue Devil'.[18]

Development
Development for a film adaptation based on the Sonic the Hedgehog video game series began as early in 1993 during production of DIC Entertainment's television show Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. Michealene Risley, the newly-appointed consumer products director who helped to green-light Adventures, was assigned to negotiate with several Hollywood producers to find support for a Sonic film. Sega CEO Tom Kalinske, however, was unsure of having a movie based on the video game because he didn't want to hurt the brand, citing Super Mario Bros. and Street Fighter as commercial and critical failures which damaged the reputation of their namesake video game franchises. Despite Kalinske's concerns, the company was highly enthusiastic about a film adaptation, and a year later, Sega struck a development deal in August 1994 with MGM and Trilogy Entertainment Group, with Pen Densham as the executive producer of the movie.[23]

With a deal secured, MGM and Sega hired Richard Jefferies, an associate of Risley from her days at Marvel Comics, to write a film treatment for the film. While working on the film, Sega had the ill-fated Sonic X-treme in development for the then-upcoming Sega Saturn, so they requested Jefferies to feature the still-unreleased console prominently on his screenplay to tie-in with the movie. Jefferies' story involved a 12-year-old boy named Josh Pinski accidentally bringing Sonic the Hedgehog to life from his Sega Saturn, but inadvertently allowing Doctor Eggman to escape into the real world, willing to turn every kid on Earth into badniks and plotting to steal the world's landmarks to create virtual reality experiences from which he can profit. Jefferies' treatment, entitled Sonic the Hedgehog: Wonders of the World, was submitted in May 1995. While the draft received a positive response among MGM and Sega executives, Shinobu Toyoda suggested to Kalinske remove Doctor Eggman from the script in favor of a "strong/mean villain" to give the series a fresh idea. Neverthless, in the end, MGM suddenly backed out the development deal and cancelled the project after a failed attempt to revive the film at DreamWorks, though Jeffries suggested that the film was scrapped as both Sega and MGM wanted a higher share of the film's projects while Densham claimed that it was because of creative differences between Sega and Trilogy.[23]

Sony Pictures Entertainment acquired the rights to produce and distribute a film based on Sonic the Hedgehog in 2013.[24] On June 10, 2014, a live-action animated film was announced as a joint venture between Sony Pictures and Marza Animation Planet.[25] 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.[25] In February 2016, Sega CEO Hajime Satomi said the film was scheduled for 2018.[26] 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.[27] Patrick Casey, Josh Miller, and Oren Uziel were writing the screenplay, while Casey and Miller wrote the story.[27][28]

On October 2, 2017, Paramount Pictures announced that they had acquired the rights after Sony's Columbia Pictures put the film into a turnaround. Most of the production team remained unchanged.[29] In February 2018, it was announced that the movie would be released in November 2019.[30][31]

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.[32] A day later, it was announced that James Marsden was cast in an undisclosed role, but later revealed to be Tom Wachowski.[13] In June 2018, Tika Sumpter was cast. Jim Carrey was cast to play the villain, Dr. Eggman, here renamed to his original Western name of Dr. Robotnik.[11] In August 2018, Ben Schwartz joined as the voice of Sonic.[33] A few days later, Adam Pally and Neal McDonough were cast.[34] Debs Howard and Elfina Luk joined the cast the following November.[35] Yuji Naka, former head of Sonic Team and lead programmer of the original Sonic the Hedgehog video game, was initially supposed to appear as an extra, but was forgotten during production.[36]

Filming
Principal photography began in mid-September 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.[37]

Visual effects and design
The visual effects are provided by Moving Picture Company (MPC), Marza Animation Planet, Blur Studio, Trixter and Digital Domain.[38] 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 500s in Red), two separate eyes,[39] and a more humanlike physique.[40] 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.[39]

On May 2, 2019, in response to criticism of the design, Fowler announced on Twitter that Sonic would be redesigned.[41] The November release date was delayed to February 14, 2020 as a result.[42] 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.[43] It is estimated that the delay of the film and the redesign of Sonic put the film $5,000,000 or less over its original budget of $90,000,000 for a total of $95,000,000.[6]

Music
In February 2019, Tom Holkenborg, who previously worked with executive producer Tim Miller on Deadpool, signed on to compose the score.[44] It was released alongside the movie on February 14, 2020 in both digital and physical formats. Riff Raff, who has a role in the film, will also appear on the soundtrack.[45] An original song titled "Speed Me Up" by Wiz Khalifa, Ty Dolla $ign, Lil Yachty, and Sueco the Child appears in the film's soundtrack; the single was publicly released on January 24 on Atlantic Records.[46] The song "Friends" by Hyper Potions, which previously appeared as the opening theme of Sonic Mania, also appears during the film, along with arrangements of tracks from Masato Nakamura's score for the original Sonic the Hedgehog video game.[47]

Marketing
est footage was screened at the Comic Con Experience in Brazil on December 6, 2018.[48] A teaser poster was released on December 10, 2018, revealing the silhouette design of Sonic.[39] It received a mostly negative response from critics and fans,[49] and was compared unfavorably to another 2019 video game film adaptation, Detective Pikachu, which had added fur and skin textures to the Pokémon characters.[40] Sonic's humanoid appearance was described as evoking an uncanny valley response.[50] Former members of Sonic Team, who created the Sonic the Hedgehog games, also expressed surprise.[51]

A second poster was leaked online shortly after. 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.[52][53] The film's official Twitter account posted an image of Sonic behind a sign reading: "Can't a guy work out?"[54] Images of the Sonic design were leaked in March 2019 to more fan criticism. Sonic co-creator Yuji Naka was "shocked" by the design and felt the ratio of Sonic's head and abdomen was imbalanced.[55] 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.[56]

The first trailer premiered on April 4, 2019, at CinemaCon in Las Vegas,[57] and was released online on April 30. It received criticism,[58][59][60] with Gita Jackson of Kotaku calling it "horrific" and "a blight upon this weary earth".[58] Sonic's design was criticized for its humanoid appearance,[58][60] while some writers found the use of Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise" jarring.[61][62] Conversely, CNET's Sean Keane praised the humor and references to the games.[63] Within two days, the trailer was viewed more than 20 million times on YouTube, and had received hundreds of thousands of "dislike" ratings, drastically outnumbering the "like" ratings.[64]

A second trailer revealing the redesigned Sonic was released on November 12, 2019.[65] The trailer received far more positive responses, with many praising Sonic's new design. The tone and the humor also received positive reviews.[66] Naka said he felt the new design was "much more Sonic-like".[67] Schneider said the redesign took around 5 months and was achieved without stressful overtime.[56] The second trailer received the highest like-to-dislike ratio of any trailer on Google in the last three years.[68]

As a promotional tie-in, the movie versions of Sonic (both Teenage and Baby variants) were added as playable characters to the Sonic Dash and Sonic Forces mobile games.[69]

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.[26][70] The film was later moved a week earlier to November 8, 2019.[71] 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."[72] 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.[73]

Box office
In the United States and Canada, Sonic the Hedgehog was released alongside Fantasy Island, The Photograph and Downhill, and is projected to gross $40–50 million from 4,130 theaters in its four-day opening weekend.[74][4] The film made $3 million from Thursday night previews.[75]

Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 64% based on 126 reviews, with an average rating of 5.8/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "Fittingly fleet and frequently fun, Sonic the Hedgehog is a video game-inspired adventure the whole family can enjoy — and a fine excuse for Jim Carrey to tap into the manic energy that launched his career."[76] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 46 out of 100, based on 37 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[77] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale, and PostTrak reported it received an average 4 out of 5 stars, with 70% of people saying they would definitely recommend it.[75]

Akeem Lawanson of IGN gave the film a score of 7 out of 10, praising the performances and the nostalgia, stating, "While this family-friendly action-comedy suffers from a simplistic story and leans too heavily on tired visual cliches, Sonic the Hedgehog is nevertheless boosted by solid performances from Ben Schwartz as Sonic and Jim Carrey as Dr. Robotnik. Their ongoing cat-and-mouse game is entertaining, and passionate fans of the Sega franchise should appreciate all the nods to Sonic's history."[78] Dami Lee of The Verge gave the film a positive review, praising the nostalgic elements seen in the film, writing that it "shines when it remembers it's based on a video game, and there's some genuinely fun stuff — like when Sonic uses his time-stopping powers or Robotnik's elaborate 'evil-plotting' montage that makes you wonder why more movies don't feature bad guys with choreographed dance sequences. Carrey plays up Robotnik as the cartoon villain he is, and it's a true delight to watch him in his element."[79] Corey Plante of Inverse called it a "road trip superhero movie" and "the best superhero movie of 2020" so far.[80] John DeFore of The Hollywood Reporter, gave the film a positive review, saying: "Flesh-and-blood actors help keep this game-derived kids' flick afloat."[81]

Gene Park of The Washington Post, gave the film a positive review, saying: "The “Sonic the Hedgehog” film is the furthest thing from “Cats,” despite the early comparisons. Wary fans expecting the usual easy target to mock will instead find something to fervently celebrate for years."[82] Amon Warrman of Empire gave the film two out of five stars, writing: "An on-form Jim Carrey can't stop Sonic's live-action debut from feeling like a missed opportunity. If the teased sequels do materialize, here's hoping the storytelling levels up."[83] Ben Kenigsberg of The New York Times, gave the film a negative review and wrote: "Sonic now resembles a cartoon hedgehog instead of a spray-painted marmot. But if anything was done to de-genericize the script, it hasn’t helped. Not that the Sega games — in which the fleet-footed hero zips around doing flips and collecting gold coins (which here encircle the Paramount mountain) — gave the director, Jeff Fowler, much to work with."[84]

Variety 's Owen Gleiberman criticized the tone: "For all the borderline tedium I felt at Sonic the Hedgehog, I do realize that this is a picture made for 8-year-olds. And they'll probably like it just fine. Yet I would also call the overly kiddified tone of the movie a mistake."[85] Writing for The Guardian, Steve Rose gave the film two out of five, saying elements were "clearly indebted" to other films, such as QuickSilver's powers in the X-Men movies, and finding the message of friendship "trite and familiar".[86] Simon Abrams of RogerEbert.com gave the film one out of four, writing: "Sonic the Hedgehog is only as successful as the amount of time you want to spend watching its animated protagonist go on instantly forgettable adventures, and boy, is that unfortunate."[87]