Call me the cynic, but I have a strong feeling that the story behind the reveal of the Sonic the Hedgehog film will be far more interesting than anything in the film itself. By now, we all know the story: the film trailer was shown and backlash to Sonic’s unexpected design caused a delay to the film for a redesign. We’ve heard that redesign cost about $5 million dollars, but how long did it take? Well, reportedly, almost half a year.
Taking to an Armenian Sonic fansite (as translated via Tails’ Channel), Animator Max Schneider revealed that the redesign took about 5 months altogether. He said they started with the face, took the model from the first trailer and a modern model of Sonic and went from there. He also said that the process was done without excessive crunch/overtime work.
“We were personally told that to change Sonic’s model, nearly 5 months of work were necessary & they started working on the face,” Schneider said. “To make the redesign, they had the model from the first trailer and a model of Modern Sonic. With this method, they compared & checked what they could change to reach a balance between both models.”
I can’t say I think the movie will be particularly good, but at least Sonic looks closer to what you expect at this point. Hopefully, it’ll be a fun romp for fans when it releases in cinemas early next year.