Two days following the backlash of the Sonic the Hedgehog movie trailer, director Jeff Fowler vowed to redesign Sonic’s look after hearing feedback on how horrible he looked. Today, Fowler is giving Sonic more tender loving care by, ironically, pushing the film’s release date back to Valentine’s Day 2020.
Fowler tweeted a photo of Sonic, hidden from view, holding up his iconic glittering goal post sign showing the new theatrical release date for the movie. It seems the only design change they made so far is slipping on his glove.
Taking a little more time to make Sonic just right.#novfxartistswereharmedinthemakingofthismovie pic.twitter.com/gxhu9lhU76
— Jeff Fowler (@fowltown) May 24, 2019
While this setback may slow down the otherwise speedy blue hedgehog’s path to the big screen, delaying the Sonic movie’s release date to Valentine’s Day is a good sign that Paramount is taking their VFX animators out of crunch hell because, as Detective Pikachu director Rob Letterman said earlier this month, it is impossible to redesign the character six months before its theatrical debut.
After Detective Pikachu garnered success for matching the aesthetics of every Pokémon in the movie to their video game and animated counterparts, the producers at Paramount are following its footsteps with Sonic.