The trailer for Sonic the Hedgehog hit the internet this week and instantly inspired all kinds of passionate responses — mostly reacting to Sonic’s more realistic look, which many fans were not in favour of.
Well, the film’s director, Jeff Fowler, heard it. All of it. And he’s taken to Twitter to vow that he’s taking it to heart.
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
We’ve reached out Paramount for confirmation and or some clarification and will update if we hear back.
So what changes are coming? Well, via Kotaku, you can check out the work of artist Edward Pun, who took the movie design and made it closer to the video games. Maybe something like this is in order?
Left is original screenshot. Right is my rework to make #Sonic more stylized. pic.twitter.com/IhXeAZYlQI
— Edward Pun (@EdwardPun1) April 30, 2019
Or here’s another one courtesy of Aaron Hammerstrom, which also went viral.
a bit rusty on my painting, but I tried doing a paintover of a shot from the movie trailer with Sonic’s design from the games for fun pic.twitter.com/h6luDEVKWW
— Aaron Hammerstrom (@virtanderson) April 30, 2019
Both of those look closer to the game, of course, but is that enough? If Paramount and Sega spend millions of dollars (and trust us, it would cost millions of dollars) to completely redesign their lead character after months of work has already been completed, would it matter? Is that what’s holding people back from fully embracing the film? Maybe we’ll find out once we see another trailer.
Sonic the Hedgehog opens November 28, which leaves plenty of time to redo basically the entire movie.