Sonic the Hedgehog Chaos

 Sonic the Hedgehog Chaos  is an 2013 American action live-action / animated science fiction film based on the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise created by Sega and Sonic Team. Being the first film in the franchise without the involvement of Brad Bird, the film was directed by Guillermo del Toro and Peter Jackson, written by Jackson, and produced by Peter Liguori, the final film that Liguori would produce for Sega Movies and 20th Century Studios and Naoto Ohshima. The film stars Robert Pattinson as Shadow and Sonic the Hedgehog as well as Bruce Willis, Michael Cera, Danny DeVito, Bob Odenkirk, Johnny Depp, Kevin Hart, Christina Ricci, Denzel Washington, and Tim Curry. The film follows Doctor Ivo Robotnik using the Space Colony ARK created by his grandfather Gerald Robotnik to destroy Earth and rule the planet Mars with new sidekick Terios the Hedgehog and Metal Sonic. Meanwhile, Shadow the Hedgehog soon starts to realize his past, how he met Sonic, and his origins with Gerald and Maria Robotnik. The movie takes most of the plot of Sonic Adventure 2 and uses it to its potential.

When Sonic the Hedgehog: Triple Trouble released in 2011, it had received mixed-to-negative reviews from critics and audiences but received better film reception from fans. Emma Stone, who stars as Amy Rose in the film, announced that she overheard Liguori, Bird, and Sega of America executives talking about plans for a sequel. Bird announced that he would have no involvement with the sequel. Michael Bay, Steven Spielberg, Robert Zemeckis, and among others were included on a list of directors for the movie until Guillermo del Toro and Peter Jackson were announced as directors. Production started in September 2011. Jackson, who was also announced as writers, included plot elements from Sonic Rangers, the original version of Triple Trouble including the Space Colony ARK and Terios the Hedgehog, being voiced by Johnny Depp after Jackson loved his performance.

Sonic the Hedgehog Chaos premiered on July 27, 2013 at Dolby Cinema and was released worldwide on August 1, 2013 and received generally positive reviews. Faring better critically and commerically then Triple Trouble, it was positively received for its performances, visual effects, action, and better writing. The film grossed $1.349 billion on a budget of $195 million, making it the highest grossing Sega Cinematic Universe film and becoming the highest grossing film of 2013, beating Frozen.

Plot
In 1953, Gerald Robotnik and his granddaughter Maria Robotnik live in the Space Colony ARK. Maria has AIDS and is unable to live on Earth. After several failed ideas including a idea for the ultimate lifeform titled the Biolizard as well as an Gizoid, but these ideas did not succeed. Later, Gerald manages to build the perfect ultimate life, calling him Project Shadow, A.K.A. Shadow the Hedgehog, who creates a special bond with her. The then-president of the Guardian Units of Nations Dwight D. Eisenhower orders Gerald to shut down Project Shadow due to the dangers but he does not listen. Eisenhower sends military troops to the ARK to destroy Project Shadow and kill everyone who knows about it except Gerald. Maria flees with Shadow and she puts him in an escape pod sending him down to Earth, then Maria is shot by a soldier. On Earth, Shadow is found by the soldiers and placed inside a tube inside Prison Island. After a bombing on Prison Island, Shadow escapes down to West Side Island where many years later, Sonic the Hedgehog finds Shadow in a tube and along with Tails, Knuckles, and Amy, they all become friends.

50 years later after the shooting on the ARK, immediately after the destruction of the Death Egg in the underworld and Mecha Sonic's death, Doctor Ivo Robotnik in his nearly destroyed Death Egg Robot with one arm and broken leg, Robotnik controls the Robot to a beach in California. Robotnik is able to flee with the help of Egg Robo and is taken back to his base in Albania with Metal Sonic and Scratch and Gounder. He realizes that his base will be invaded by soldiers soon and leaves while packing stuff up. While packing up, Robotnik finds a diary of his grandfather Gerald Robotnik and that he hid Project Shadow on Prison Island. Robotnik quickly makes his way to Prison Island but does not find Shadow. Meanwhile, a meteor from Mars crashes down on Earth onto Prison Island and down into Prison Island. This is revealed to be Terios the Hedgehog, who has had his life-long plan to rule Mars using Gerald's Space Colony ARK. Robotnik escapes with Egg Robo before the soldiers arrive. Robotnik, with the help of his badniks, creates a new base in Egypt in the Great Pyramid of Giza, where he creates a teleporter to the ARK. Before that, he watches on the news that "Sonic" robbed the bank in New York City, also stealing an Chaos Emerald from Area 55 but it is Terios, with spray paint on Terios to make him look like Sonic.

The next morning, Jeff Balkiry gets ready for breakfast with his grandpa Edward (who is now retired) in Central City, which they have moved from Queens Village and now have many good neighbors such as Ryan and Jennifer Drummond, their child Corey, Martin Kutcher and Jaleel the mailmen, and Mike Dreier. They hear on the news that Sonic was arrested. Jeff is shocked and tries to go and bail Sonic out. Tom Berg, who is a big fan of Sonic who hosts a website called sonicfantalk.net, also wants to prove that Sonic is innocent. Meanwhile, Robotnik orders Metal Sonic to capture Shadow. Metal Sonic does this and takes Shadow to Robotnik's base where he is hypnotized and turned into Nemesis Shadow. Meanwhile, while protecting the Master Emerald, Knuckles runs into Rouge the Bat who claims herself as the best treasure hunter ever. Robotnik comes and tries to steal the Master Emerald until Knuckles breaks it to prevent him from taking it. Rouge gets mad at Knuckles and sets out to find the shards of the Master Emerald herself, while Knuckles looks for them on his own. Sonic goes through Central City avoiding the police, until he outruns the GUN Military Truck and at night, defeats the F-6t Big Foot and running into Terios, whereas he uses Chaos Control to get away when Sonic is arrested again. Jeff, Tom, and Edward are accepted help from Tails to go onto Prison Island to bail out Sonic, believing he is innocent.

Jeff, Edward, Tom, Tails, and Amy invade G.U.N.'s prison base with Tails' Tornado 2 and while they're distracted, Amy goes to free Sonic. Robotnik, Rouge, Nemesis Shadow, and Terios get five Chaos Emeralds on the island to power the ARK when Sonic runs into Nemesis Shadow, who tries to convince him to come back to his regular self but to no avail. Robotnik places a bomb to blow up the island and Nemesis Shadow saves Rouge from Prison Island blowing up while Terios develops an evil relationship with them. Robotnik makes an announcement worldwide that if every country and state does not surrender to him, then he will blow up the Earth with the Space Colony ARK laser and take over Mars. He blows up the island of Pole of inaccesibility AKA Point Nemo, whoch goes all the way near China, making it 23 hours before his demands aren't meant. Knuckles, Amy, and Jeff are able to get the last seventh Chaos Emerald while Sonic and Tails interfer with Robotnik's conversation with President Broadie Allen and track him down on the Space Colony ARK. They break into his base and take his spaceship into the ARK. Knuckles spills the Master Emerald shards on the ARK and leaves to collect them. Jeff, Tom, and Edward meanwhile has spacesuits to survive. Tails made an fake Chaos Emerald which they can use to trick Robotnik into putting it into the ARK cannon so the cannon will be destroyed. However, Robotnik detects an eight emerald and immediately finds out it is a fake. While Knuckles collects the shards, Rouge fights him until Rouge accidentally falls into a pit of lava upside down (which bats cannot fly upside down) until Knuckles saves her. Rouge gives him back his shards and makes her way back. Jeff, Tom, Edward, and Amy are held hostage by Robotnik and Terios until Tails and Sonic burst in and fight Terios until Sonic is lured into a trap.

Sonic is sent hurdling into space in an escape capsule that is set to explode but uses Chaos Control (the thing that Terios used earlier) to teleport back into the ARK. Tails, thinking that Sonic is dead along with the others, fights Robotnik and Terios. Sonic meets Knuckles somewhere on the ARK and Nemesis Shadow is investigated by Rouge about his past with Gerald and Maria Robotnik. It turns out, Ivo altered Shadow's memory on purpose in order to think that Maria tricked him into destroying Earth and ruling Mars. Sonic races through the ARK along with Nemesis Shadow unknowningly and they meet each other again after their standstill on Prison Island. They fight each other on the way to the cannon of the ARK where Sonic defeats Nemesis Shadow and successfully stops the Space Colony's laser from striking the Earth. This is when Jeff, Tails, Edward, Tom, and Amy find out Sonic is alive. Robotnik, who snuck away with the seventh emerald not knowing that Sonic is alive and the ARK laser is destroyed, makes his way to the barrel and places the emerald inside. However, the computer and ARK malfunctions and the Space Colony is sent on an downward spiral to Earth, with a speech from the late Gerald Robotnik, who before being executed by guards offscreen on Prison Island, made a speech about the reason why he programmed the ARK to hit the Earth to get revenge on the people who killed Maria, with Jeff, Edward, Sonic, and the others all find out about Gerald creating Shadow.

Terios secretly sneaks away. Ivo, not having a choice, teams up with Rouge, Knuckles, Sonic, and Tails to stop the ARK from striking the Earth with them opening paths for Sonic to make his way to the center of the ARK. Meanwhile, Jeff, Tom, Edward, and Amy try to convince Nemesis Shadow to come back to his normal self and help the others save Earth, and it ends up working as Shadow snaps back to his normal self and remembers what Maria told him about protecting Earth's inhabitants and realizing his mistakes, rushes to help the others. At the center of the ARK, Sonic and Knuckles run into a shrine which looks like Knuckles' Master Emerald shrine and run into the Biolizard, the prototype of the ultimate lifeform that Gerald had created before Shadow and the Gizoid. Shadow comes back and reunites with Knuckles and Sonic before going off to fight the Biolizard. Knuckles recites a prayer verse of the Master Emerald, which teleports the Chaos Emeralds to them but the ARK is still on a crash course to Earth. All of a sudden, the Biolizard uses Chaos Control to teleport outside the ARK to continue making it crash down to Earth and turning into the Finalhazard. Before this, Metal Sonic tackles Sonic to the ground and fights him while Knuckles and Shadow cannot help. Sonic continues fighting Metal Sonic until he tears his heart out, leaving him barley alive. Having no other choice, Sonic, along with Shadow, use the Chaos Emeralds once again to defeat the Biolizard. Terios also uses the emeralds to transform into Super Terios. With five minutes before the Colony hits the Earth, Super Sonic and Super Shadow both defeat Terios, sending him hurdling into space being hit by an asteroid and killing him, and defeating the Finalhazard.

Super Sonic and Super Shadow use Chaos Control to transfer the ARK back to its original position. Sonic and Shadow transform back into their regular forms but Shadow, in a sacrifice, uses the Chaos Control to get Sonic to the Space Colony while he falls down to Earth, with him fulfilling Maria's promise of protecting Earth, with the people on the planet celebrating. Sonic comes back on the ARK and announces Shadow's death. Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Jeff, Tom, Robotnik, Rouge, and Edward all become sad and heartbroken. Rouge talks with Sonic about how Gerald created Shadow for the purpose of carrying out his revenge plan on Earth, Tails and Robotnik talk about how Gerald inspired him, Knuckles and Rouge both talk about their futures, Jeff, Edward, and Tom talk about their lives and if they will ever see each other again. They all exit the Space Colony ARK, but Sonic bids Shadow farewell. A week later, Sonic and the others still miss Shadow but have gotten over his death. Robotnik is missing while Jeff and Edward continue living their life with Jeff's parents in Central City.

Cast
Among the other cast are several people. Robin Williams played a fictionalized version of 1953-1961 president Dwight D. Eisenhower, making it one of his final film roles before his death on August 11, 2014. Coincidentally, Williams also played Eisenhower in The Butler, a film that also released the same year. Alec Baldwin and Jennifer Saunders reprise their role as Arnold and Hillary Balkiry respectively, Jeff's parents who appear at the film's ending. Mike Pollock, voice actor of Doctor Eggman in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, reprises his role as Michael Pollock, a news reporter who reports the arresting of Sonic. Charlie Day also stars as Grant Svenson-Sanchez, a worker at Area 55 who is Sanchez's husband, but has less screentime then last time. Avril Lavigne plays herself on an advertisement on TV. Sonic the Hedgehog Chaos is the first Sonic production where Ryan Drummond, Jennifer Douillard, Scott Dreier, and David Humphrey where they have involvement in the franchise since 2004's Sonic Advance 3 and Sega Superstars and the last one to have their involvement. They voiced Sonic, Amy, Knuckles, and Shadow respectively. Drummond and Douillard voiced Sonic and Amy from 1998 until 2004. Dreier and Humphrey voiced Knuckles and Shadow from 2001 to 2004. Jaleel White reprises his role as Jaleel the Mailman from the first movie, another mailman who moved into Central City.

Development
After Sonic the Hedgehog the Movie's release in June 2008, many fans speculated that there would be a sequel due to its massive box-office success and even speculated that there would be a third film. Fans speculated that the later stories of the films would follow the stories of Sonic Adventure or Sonic the Hedgehog 2006, saying that their plots would be perfect for the film. Brad Bird, director of the first two films, stated in a 2017 interview that if he did return for Chaos, then he would have adapted the story of Sonic '06. Sonic the Hedgehog: Triple Trouble, despite receiving mixed-to-negative reviews from critics, was a massive box-office success. Compared to the first film's $644 million, Triple Trouble grossed $824 million, becoming one of the most highest grossing films of 2011 despite the issues it faced during production. A month after its release where the film had already grossed $698 million, Yuji Naka and Kyle Balda, the latter who was co-director of the second movie, announced the writing of a third film in the Sonic film series, adapting the story of the 2001 Sonic video game Sonic Adventure 2. Bird received thousands of emails from fans asking if he was going to return. In an interview on television, Bird announced that he would not return to direct the third film, under the working title of and Knuckles (as a reference to Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles, and then announced to be under the title of Sonic the Hedgehog Chaos. Joel Coen, who returned for Chaos said that this was not met as a reference to the 1993 Master System game Sonic Chaos or the character of the same name from Sonic Adventure. Fang the Sniper was in talks to be in the film with Jack Black in talks to voice him. Black rejected after, and Billy West was also considered for the role of Fang with Bark and Bean also set to appear but they were scrapped from the movie as the producers did not know what to do with them.

Unlike Triple Trouble, Chaos had a much more better development time then the previous film, having a production/development time of 22 months where the previous movie had a much longer production time as the cancelled film Sonic Rangers had a major toll on the production as Triple Trouble, if you count Rangers too, had a production time of 38 months which Bird says is one of the reasons why he did not return. There were multitude of directors considered for Sonic the Hedgehog Chaos, many famous actors. Michael Bay was in talks to direct but he later declined as he was busy working on his Transformers film series as well as other films. Sam Raimi wanted to direct but was disinterested in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise including the films. Producer Peter Liguori was a fan of Robert Zemeckis' movies and wanted him to direct Sonic the Hedgehog Chaos, but Joel's brother Ethan Coen saw several of Zemeckis' films and did not like the ImageMove motion-capture he used for his movies and was afraid he was gonna use it for Chaos so Liguori was convinced by Coen. The film's directors were eventually announced soon. Guillermo del Toro, director of the then-upcoming Pacific Rim, and Peter Jackson. Jackson wanted to make the film as faithful as possible to Sonic Adventure 2. Kevin Williamson was contacted by del Toro and Jackson and he told them to take inspiration from Sonic Rangers. They both took note of this and Jackson started writing the script then. Shiro Maekawa, the writer of most of the 2001-09 Sonic games, was announced to return to the franchise in Chaos as executive producer along with Hirokazu Yasuhara (the game designer of the three Genesis/MegaDrive Sonic titles), Yuji Naka (co-creator of Sonic), and brothers Joel and Ethan Coen who served as the co-directors of the first movie.

Guillermo del Toro had joined the film because he was a big fan of Sonic the Hedgehog. He split his working hours from Pacific Rim and Sonic Chaos in order to work on both films equally without getting tired, depressed, or even stressed out a lot. James Cameron, the original director of the first movie who created the original story before James L. Brooks stepped in, even stated that he was interested in directing, but was very occupied with creating his Avatar sequels. Kevin Williamson, main writer of Triple Trouble, returned to the film not as a writer but instead a executive producer agreeing to return after Scream 4 released in theaters, not having any schedule issues like last time where Bird and Balda had to take his place as writers for Triple Trouble. SegaSammy had a major part in distributing Sonic Chaos where SegaSammy made an agreement with 20th Century Fox to distribute the film with Sega. Fox distributed 50%, Sega distributed 30%, and SegaSammy distributed the other 30%. Amy Pascal, at the time president of Sony Pictures Entertainment, again asked Sega Movies to co-distribute the film with Sony Pictures Animation, regretting not distributing Sonic the Hedgehog the Movie when it turned out to be a huge success. When hearing Pascal's statement, other executive producer Tom Kalinske (former Sega of America president) burst out laughing for apparently 13 minutes straight and after he stopped, told Pascal to get out of the office. Pascal has not responded to anything about it. Kalinske and Jackson still talk about the incident at conventions, occasionally laughing about it a lot. Before the announcement of Chaos, Emma Stone, who voices Amy Rose in the movie, went onto The Ellen DeGeneres Show on July 10, 2011, almost a month after Sonic the Hedgehog: Triple Trouble's release for an interview on her life and voicing Amy in the movies. At four minutes and thirty three seconds into the interview on the show, she said this statement:

Writing
Jackson started approximately penning the script for Chaos in September 2011 and finished in October of that same year. During the time he spent writing the script, Jackson played Sonic Aventure 2 and Shadow the Hedgehog on the Sega Dreamcast and Nintendo GameCube respectively to get a perspective of the stories including the Gerald and Maria Robotnik and Project Shadow story that Shadow focused on more then Adventure 2. One common critcism of Sonic the Hedgehog the Movie was about Shadow the Hedgehog being pointlessly included, especially fans were angry about Shadow not having his Space Colony ARK and Project Shadow backstory. Jackson heard the fans' complaints, writing the script with those plot points intended in mind, having fans excited. Jackson would have to fix many of the plot holes from Adventure 2 as well who would throw Sonic in jail. Terios the Hedgehog was a character who was written in Sonic Rangers before it was deleted. Terios was also a character who was Shadow's original character design in Adventure 2. He wrote the plot that Terios was a meteor that came from Mars and would help Doctor Ivo Robotnik destroy Earth and rule Mars as well as the other planets in the Solar System.

Jackson also decided that Shadow would fight Sonic, and therefore wrote in "Nemesis Shadow," an hypnotized version of Shadow by Ivo Robotnik who helps them destroy Earth with the ARK. Metal Sonic would be given a much smaller role in the film compared to the first film and Triple Trouble, while Scratch and Grounder, who originated from the 1993 TV show Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog were given approximately 2 minutes and 30 seconds of screentime. The film was made much shorter then the previous instalments faring at 1 hour and 53 minutes and 29 seconds AKA 113 minutes, because he decided that Adventure 2 's story can be shoved in a much smaller run time then the others. Guillermo del Toro would also help out with the script as well writing in elements from Shadow the Hedgehog and to a lesser extent, 2003's Sonic Heroes. The Egg Robo has more then screentime then Scratch, Grounder, and Metal Sonic combined. Maria Robotnik was written as a kind-hearted sweet innocent girl just like in Adventure 2, where despite her condition, stays positive no matter what happens which Jackson explains is why Shadow became best friends with her. Dwight D. Eisenhower was also given a role in the flashback, being the president of G.U.N. and the United States as well.

Jackson's script was finished in October 2011 and sent to Sega and Fox executives who absolutely loved the film, with Liguori stating they immedately started production on it starting with the casting of the characters.

Casting
With Gerald Robotnik revealed to have a major role in the film, the question was asked by many fans "Who is going to play Gerald?" Casting director Juliet Taylor held a secret competition for who would be the best actor for Gerald. Eventually, Bryan Cranston was one of the people who auditioned. Jackson and Taylor recongnized Cranston from Breaking Bad and applauded him for his acting on the show. It was announced that Cranston would be playing Gerald. To find someone for Maria Robotnik, Isabela Merced was one of the people who auditioned. Merced was announced to be playing an unknown role (later revealed as Maria), with the film being her feature film debut. Robert Pattinson and Emma Stone were of course announced to be returning along with Idris Elba and Anna Faris as Sonic the Hedgehog and Shadow the Hedgehog, Amy Rose, Knuckles the Echidna, and Miles "Tails" Prower respectively. Danny DeVito and Bruce Willis also announced their returns as Edward Balkiry and Ivo Robotnik while Michael Cera would also be returning and Johnny Depp in talks to voice a new character. Depp announced he would be voicing Terios the Hedgehog, an doppelgänger hedgehog who came from Mars with the intention of destroying Earth. Terios was the original design of Shadow in Sonic Adventure 2 before he was replaced by Shadow's current design.

William H. Macy was Jackson's first interest in voicing Terios, but when Jackson called Macy, he had immediately accepted due to his interest in big-budget action films.