The Sonic the Hedgehog movie certainly has a unique aesthetic.
Fans are…divided…over the bold new character designs for the Blue Blur’s first official
live action adaptation, but one thing is certain: this is definitely a movie that’s not afraid
to take risks.
This is fitting, as the project has been a tumultuous endeavour right from the start.
If you’ve ever wondered who on earth started the ball rolling on the Sonic the Hedgehog
movie, the answer is, surprisingly enough, Sony.
In 2014, hundreds of internal Sony emails were leaked online, and from these messages,
we can glean a lot about the fascinating tale of how the Sonic movie came to be.
The story starts with Amy Pascal and Avi Arad, two Sony executives with a long history of
moviemaking that mostly centres, not on video games, but comic book movies.
Amy and Avi were both producers on Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which is amazing, and
Venom, which is also a film.
But around a decade ago, Sony Pictures started getting excited about the idea of video game
movie adaptations.
These, they hoped, would be the next big thing in cinema; the trend that would grow naturally
from the boom in comic book movies.
Sony looked at adapting all of their most popular video game franchises, such as Uncharted
and BioShock, but Avi Arad had also set his sights on one Sony’s major competitors:
a Japanese gaming company with a very familiar mascot.
Avi wanted to make a Mario movie.
He spent over five years trying to court Nintendo, desperate to get the rights to as many Nintendo
characters as he could, including Zelda, Donkey Kong, and Pokemon, which Sony was particularly
interested in grabbing.
There was even talk, although it’s unclear how far these plans got, of making a Super
Smash Brothers movie with all of these characters together.
In one email to Amy Pascal, Avi Arad proudly stated that he was now “the father of the
Mario movie”, before these plans fell apart.
Avi’s negotiations with Nintendo managed to secure an appearance from Donkey Kong in
the Adam Sandler movie Pixels, but otherwise, he ultimately walked away empty-handed.
It’s likely, though, that his pushing inspired Nintendo to think hard about making movies
based on their popular characters.
Eventually, the company would hand the rights to a Mario movie to Illumination, the studio
behind the Minions movies.
As for the Pokemon franchise, Sony’s initial prodding led Nintendo to license Detective
Pikachu.
This film’s history is fascinating in its own right, but it’s a story for another
day.
While Sony was still pushing for the rights to a Nintendo character, they were also exploring
other avenues, including negotiations with Sega for the rights to Sonic the Hedgehog.
Sega was hesitant, largely because there were rumours that Sony was going to sell their
movie wing, Columbia pictures, and Sega didn’t want the rights to Sonic falling into the
hands of one of their competitors in the gaming market, such as ActiVision.
Eventually, Sega was persuaded, and work on the Sonic movie commenced.
Sony executives were thrilled, but it was clear that not everyone entirely understood
what they were dealing with.
One high up executive within the company, Dick Sano, sent out an enthusiastic email
that will make any Sonic fan cringe.
In the email, Dick referred to the character repeatedly as “SONIC THE HEDGE DOG”, and
hoped that this new live action film would be, quote, “another franchise like RESIDENT
EVIL for our Japanese market”.
Presumably Dick was referring to the Resident Evil movies rather than the games, but either
way, it’s clear that not everyone at Sony was on the same page about what a Sonic movie
should be.
Especially if some people thought Sonic was a “hedge dog”.
Whatever that is.
But, to give credit to Amy Pascal and her fellow executives at Sony: they made some
phenomenal decisions regarding the creative team behind the Sonic film.
At around the same time as Chris Miller and Phil Lord signed on for Into the Spider-Verse,
Sony managed to convince Deadpool director Tim Miller and his team to make Sonic.
This was a major coup for the studio.
Tim Miller was enjoying a lot of praise for his work on Deadpool, but after a very public
falling out with Ryan Reynolds, his career was taking a new direction.
Tim himself would end up focusing his directorial efforts on a new Terminator movie, alongside
James Cameron, while the direction of Sonic fell to his talented collaborator Jeff Fowler.
Before Sonic, Jeff was best known for directing the 2004 animated short, Gopher Broke, which
ended up being nominated for an Academy Award.
This was the team that put together the modern incarnation of the Sonic film, complete with
Jim Carrey as “Doctor Eggman Robotnik”, but the main bulk of the work didn’t happen
at Sony.
Something about the project spooked the studio.
It’s not clear what Sony’s thought process was – whether it was based on the character
designs that the team was creating, or simply a lack of faith in video game movies.
Sony was going through a major period of reshuffling following the devastating impact of their
email leaks.
Amy Pascal stepped down as president, and many projects were cancelled outright to focus
on safer, more sure-fire hits, like films about Spider-Man.
The Sonic the Hedgehog movie was one such casualty, but neither its creators, nor Sony,
really wanted to see their work go to waste.
So, Sony decided to sell the license, and all of their work on the movie, in one big
bundle, to Paramount Pictures.
This was done by way of a “turnaround”, in which a movie studio writes off all its
work on a project as a loss for tax purposes, then is paid the same amount, often plus interest,
from the buying studio.
All of the creative team stayed in place, and work continued on the Sonic movie at Paramount.
Less is known about the ins and outs of the creative process on the film after this point,
as Paramount is better at avoiding security leaks than Sony was in 2014.
Perhaps more will come to light in time, but for now, if you’re wondering who on earth
thought the Sonic the Hedgehog movie was a good idea, don’t judge them too harshly.
They also laid the groundwork for Detective Pikachu, the Mario movie, and even Spider-Man:
Into the Spider-Verse.
Of course, Amy Pascal was also a producer on the 2016 Ghostbusters reboot, but we’ll
let that slide.
You can’t win ‘em all!