Gotta go fast? More like, gotta slow the heck down! Amirite? All jokes aside, it looks like Jeff Fowler’s film adaptation of Sonic the Hedgehog, already mired in controversy, just took another backwards step.
Due to the massive outpouring of criticism and the fact that, in reality, it does take an extremely long time to completely change the model of your main computer-generated character, Paramount has made the decision to push the movie’s release date back three months, from November 8th to February 14th.
The director sent a very simple tweet out. The hand-drawn announcement, which is Sonic’s be-gloved hand holding a sign with the new release date, was coupled with Fowler saying that they’re “taking a little more time to get Sonic just right,” like he’s a bowl of blue porridge or something.
The filmmaker’s tongue-in-cheek hashtag, meanwhile, “#NoVFXartistsWereHarmedInTheMakingOfThisMovie,” is quite the obvious reference to the current controversy surrounding the entertainment industry’s reliance on unhealthy overtime and crunch to get computer graphics in both film and video games done on absurdly tight schedules.
Taking a little more time to make Sonic just right.#novfxartistswereharmedinthemakingofthismovie pic.twitter.com/gxhu9lhU76
— Jeff Fowler (@fowltown) May 24, 2019
What does this mean for the film? Well, nothing good. Aside from Deadpool and Get Out, February is typically reserved for low-tier romcoms to capitalize on Valentine’s Day. That, or studios use January and The Lover’s 28 (as I like to call the second month) to dump unwanted, piss-poor films that they know will under perform. Considering how poorly the trailer was received, and the fact that, at least to my knowledge, nobody really wanted a Sonic movie in the first place, this move really shouldn’t come as any surprise.
A lot of the initial reactions to Fowler’s announcement that the character would indeed be completely re-designed from the ground up were met with skepticism. How would they possibly re-do an entire film’s worth of VFX in just under half a year? Now we have our answer, I guess. I really do wonder if Paramount tried to engage in serious crunch though and Fowler negotiated out of it? I’m not sure if it’ll affect the end quality of the film, but at least nobody’s gonna lose any sleep over it.
Tell us, though, do you think this is a good move for the beleaguered Sonic the Hedgehog adaptation? And do you think an improved design can save a floundering movie? Let us know in the comments section below.