Sonic Movie Producer Breaks Down Hedgehog Redesign After Trailer Backlash
The producer of the Sonic the Hedgehog films, Neal Moritz, breaks down the decision to redesign Sonic following the overwhelmingly negative response to the first movie's initial trailer. The backlash to the trailer was so intense that Paramount agreed to delay the film several months to fix the problem and satisfy fans. Director Jeff Fowler pushed his entire VFX team to redesign the character to more closely resemble his video game appearance.
Neither of the Sonic the Hedgehog movies have earned stellar scores from critics — the first film has a 63% score on Rotten Tomatoes, while Sonic 2 sits at 66%. However, the audience's excitement for the property reached an all-time high this year, with Sonic the Hedgehog 2’s box office breaking the record for a video game movie's opening weekend gross. While the movies differ in some ways from Sonic video game canon, they offer heartfelt homages to their source material, unlike most other video game adaptations.
Related: Why Sonic 2’s Box Office Is So Good (& Broke Video Game Movie Records)
Now, Moritz, who also produces other franchises such as Goosebumps and Fast & Furious, explains how the movie's unprecedented redesign came about while on The Town with Matthew Belloni podcast. While the Sonic the Hedgehog trailer backlash was significant, the “huge interest” showed the filmmakers they could have a hit on their hands, if they addressed fan complaints. Moritz details the meeting with Paramount and SEGA executives, saying the studio was “very supportive” of his and Fowler’s decision to redesign the character. Check out a quote from Moritz below:
I remember it like it was yesterday… Here's what we learned: we learned that we had more views and more interest in something than we
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