Amid all the criticism, the director of the Sonic the Hedgehog movie has announced that movie will be delayed.
Ever since the live action Sonic the Hedgehog has been announced, fans were more than a little worry. Movies based on video games have been notoriously not well-received, and making a Sonic movie into live action seemed odd. The Sonic games are all about talking animals trying to stop an overweight scientist from collect magical gems. How can that possibly work in live-action?
After several promotional images were released, fan’s concerns only escalated. Fans did not positively receive the images of Sonic. When the first trailer was finally released, people all over the internet “passionately” expressed their dissatisfaction with the look of the movie. The main source of criticism was aimed towards Sonic’s design, with his visible teeth and gloveless hands being the most mocked aspects of the design.
Not long afterward, the director of the movie, Jeff Fowler, went on Twitter to reply to the criticisms. He writes that he has read the complaints and that he plans to fix Sonic’s design.
Thank you for the support. And the criticism. The message is loud and clear… you aren’t happy with the design & you want changes. It’s going to happen. Everyone at Paramount & Sega are fully committed to making this character the BEST he can be… #sonicmovie #gottafixfast ?✌️
— Jeff Fowler (@fowltown) May 2, 2019
While the Tweet was well-liked by fans, as it meant the filmmakers were listening to the complaints, some were less enthused by the news. The film was slated to release in November of this year, so it didn’t appear that there would be enough time to redesign Sonic. Many people online express worry that redesigning Sonic this late in production will force employees to work overtime to get Sonic ready in time for the film’s original slated release.
The video game industry has already been under much criticism lately due to crunch. Crunch is when video game developers work unreasonably long hours to get a game done in time for release. Some employees in big gaming studios have confessed to working 100-hour in one week.
Fans were concern that the Sonic the Hedgehog movie will follow a similar crunch-like approach; forcing employees to work long hours to finish the product on time.
Jeff Fowler seems to calm people’s concerns today when he announced that the Sonic the Hedgehog movie will be delayed. Instead of November, the movie will now release on February 20, 2020. That would make it a (late) Valentines movie.
Taking a little more time to make Sonic just right.#novfxartistswereharmedinthemakingofthismovie pic.twitter.com/gxhu9lhU76
— Jeff Fowler (@fowltown) May 24, 2019
This delay will give the filmmakers more time to redesign Sonic, and implement the redesign in the finished film. It is unknown if the redesign will completely fix the film’s problems, but it will certainly be a good start.
Fowler’s Tweet shows an image of Sonic’s hand holding a sign with the new release date. The interesting about Sonic’s hand is that he has gloves on, which he doesn’t have in the live action film. Does that mean Sonic’s redesign will have gloves, just like in the games? Or is it just a reference to his gaming origin?
The live action Sonic the Hedgehog movie is now expected to release on February 20, 2020.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvvZaBf9QQI
