The Sonic the Hedgehog Movie

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Sonic the Hedgehog the Movie is a 2008 American live-action CGI animated hybrid action film directed by Spike Lee and Brad Bird with a screenplay by James L. Brooks.The film is based off the Sonic the Hedgehog video game franchise by Sega. The film stars Michael Cera as Jeff Balkiry, a 17 year old high-school student who find out about the existence of Sonic the Hedgehog, including using the six Chaos Emeralds and end the war between him and Dr. Ivo Robotnik, who plans to use his scientific creations known as Badniks to dominate the world. The film also stars Bruce Willis as Robotnik, and Denzel Washington, Danny DeVito, and Christina Ricci. Robert Pattinson stars as Sonic and Shadow the Hedgehog as well as Tim Curry as the main antagonist, Metal Sonic. The film was distributed by Sega, 20th Century Fox, and Walden Media.

Ideas for Sonic movies were planned before like Sonic: Wonders of the World and Sonic Apocalypse but they were cancelled. Spike Lee approached Sega in 2004 to produce a Sonic movie but was decided on for months. James Cameron presented Sega the idea, and they immediately greenlit it. Production was started a few months later. Cameron eventually had to leave the project to direct Avatar where Lee took his place, alongside Brad Bird. A teaser was shown at San Diego Comic-Con in December 2007. The animation for the characters were done by Marza Animation Planet, an animation division, owned by Sega, and 20th Century Animation.

Sonic the Hedgehog the Movie was released on June 23, 2008 for Sonic's 17th birthday. It received mostly positive reviews from critics, praising the performances, animation, and characters but criticized the runtime and screenplay. The film grossed $644 million on a budget of $207 million, deeming it a box-office success. A sequel titled Sonic the Hedgehog: Triple Trouble was released in 2010.

Plot
In a flashback, Dr. Ivo Robotnik (Bruce Willis) finds a race of species, on West Side Island called Mobians. Among those Mobians are Sonic (Robert Pattinson), Tails (Anna Faris), Knuckles (Idris Elba), Amy (Emma Stone), and Shadow (Pattinson). Robotnik forms an alliance with them, but his more mechanical creations cause him to go downhill and pollute the island, creating self-conscious robots called badniks. Among these badniks he creates an metal copy of Sonic, Metal Sonic (Tim Curry). Robotnik pollutes the island more and more until it becomes a barren waste land. The group evacuate as Robotnik reveals his plans to dominate the world.

Meanwhile, Jeff Balkiry (Michael Cera) is constantly bullied by other students in his school, being described as a class nerd. Afterschool, he is called to his grandpa Edward Balkiry (Danny DeVito)'s lab under his house. Edward explains to Jeff that he found a species off the side of the Pacific Ocean, scanning footprints and fingerprints, showing that they could be an alien species. Jeff dismisses this and calls his grandpa crazy. His grandpa tries to call him one last time, saying he found three shiny glowing emeralds, pink, red, and green. Jeff's parents (Alec Baldwin and Jennifer Saunders) have separated from Edward and decide not to talk to him as they think he is a bad influence on Jeff.

Meanwhile, Thomas Mackerel (Denzel Washington) is a military general who works at Area 51. A ship crash lands out the site. Inside it, are 8 feet tall robots shaped as crabs and ladybugs, covered in dust and mold. After killing the robots, they scan the robots and find it as property of Dr. Ivo Robotnik. Thomas launches a search investigation for Robotnik and try to arrest him, putting him on the FBI's most wanted list. After looking further in the ship, they find Metal Sonic in there. His assistant Chloe Sanchez (Christina Ricci) finds Metal and brings it to the lab for testing. To be safe, they temporarily trap Metal in a glass container.

On their ship, the Tornado, Sonic and the others are attacked by Robotnik's badnik drones. And they are knocked into the ocean. Tails, Knuckles, Amy, and Shadow all hang onto a piece of wood while Sonic is no where to be seen. With the permission of his parents, Jeff goes onto the beach to meet up with Stacy, a girl he likes. This goes wrong as Jeff gets bullied by her and Jeff goes home. Before going home, on the beach, he finds a blue quill in the water and a white hand stick out. Jeff tries to save it, not knowing what it is, if it is drowning or not. That thing was Sonic, being saved from drowning by Jeff. Jeff takes Sonic to a private location on the beach, and manages to snap him back conscious again.

He introduces himself and he runs into Tails, Amy, Knuckles, and Shadow. He takes them to his grandpa's lab, where they tell him about the six chaos emeralds and how when Robotnik took over West Side Island and lost the Chaos emeralds, as well as Metal Sonic. They find that Jeff's grandpa has three of the six emeralds. They plan to use the six emeralds to restore peace to the polluted, barren, wasteland once known as West Side Island. To stay in hiding from the government, Jeff allows them to stay in his home attic, while hiding them from his parents. Robotnik, in a search for Metal Sonic and the emeralds, releases his badniks worldwide to look for them. This goes wrong and ends up killing several people as well as going into Jeff's neighboorhood.

This being in his neighboorhood, Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, and Shadow go out, risking being seen to destroy all the badniks. Shadow gets injured in the process, but they manage to defeat the badniks, but find out that there are several more worldwide. President Stevenson Earle (John Goodman), having hearing about Dr. Robotnik and the badniks killing people, declares war on Dr. Robotnik.

Back at Area 51, Mackerel and Sanchez find discovery of three emeralds: blue, yellow, and white. Sanchez orders the team to do research on the emeralds while on war with Robotnik. Mackerel finds radiation coming from a house in Jeff's neighboorhood. They invade the house with FBI and its Jeff's grandpa's house. They find out all the experiments his grandpa has been doing and goes after Jeff's house too. They arrest Jeff, his parents, and even Tails, Knuckles, and Amy. Sonic and Shadow fortunately manages to get away with his speed and agility and tries to free the others.

They are taken to Area 51 where they are asked for questioning, and Tails, Knuckles, and Amy are experimented on. Sonic and Shadow find the room they're in and break in. During this, Robotnik has broken into the base to receive Metal Sonic. Sonic and Shadow take out several guards and flee with Amy, Tails, and Knuckles. Tails hack into the computer system to free Jeff, but instead unknowingly frees Metal Sonic. They save Jeff and flee but to their surprise, Metal Sonic's chamber has opened. Metal Sonic jumps out of the chamber and starts injuring the guards. Sonic tries to fight him but gets knocked unconscious after one hit. Metal Sonic flies out of Area 51 while Shadow and Knuckles try to catch up with him. They are encountered by Robotnik, who fights them in his powerful mech, the Egg Robo, along with his powerful badniks. Jeff's parents are also freed, along with his grandpa.

In Las Vegas, Mayor West announces the war between the military and Robotnik and his badniks. The entire town is evacuated while his badniks come to Las Vegas and start terrorizing it, among the control of Metal Sonic. While getting to Las Vegas, Sonic battles a white 7 foot mech monster, while Amy fights off the badniks with her piko-piko hammer. Tails flies in his bi-plane Tornado with Knuckles and Jeff, the latter getting the six Chaos Emeralds in his backpack. At Las Vegas, Amy and Shadow battle the badniks, while Knuckles and Tails defend Jeff. Some people who failed to evacuate try to help them with the badniks, while Mackerel and Sanchez assemble the military army to help.

Sonic fights Metal Sonic, eventually getting flown into a building which falls down. Metal Sonic and Robotnik chase after Jeff, destroying several buildings, badniks, and cars in the process. Jeff goes up to the top of the building but gets shot down by Metal Sonic, but Tails saves Jeff in his tornado, later torn down by Metal Sonic. Jeff tries to get the six emeralds to safety while Sonic has an all-out brawl with Metal. Robotnik is captured by the military and held at gunpoint. The military shoot down missles at Metal Sonic, still trying to chase Jeff. Being cornered by Metal, Sonic tells Jeff to run, but Jeff rams the pink Chaos Emerald into Metal Sonic's jet engine chest hole, the radiation of the Chaos Emerald and Metal's jet engine being so powerful that it destroys the Emerald and kills Metal Sonic. Sonic, Tails, Amy, Knuckles, and Shadow thank Jeff for his help, while Robotnik is captured by the military and Mackerel and Sanchez congratulate Jeff, honoring him a medal.

A day later, Jeff reunites with his parents, his grandpa too, reconciling with Jeff's parents. Sonic, Tails, Knukcles, Amy, and Shadow work for the U.S. government in stopping crime. Besides that, the badniks and Metal Sonic's bodies were dropped off onto Point Nemo, the most remote island in the world. In a post-credit scene, Robotnik pulls out a button while being interrogated by authorities and presses it. This results in Robotnik dissapearing, nowhere to be seen.

Cast

 * Michael Cera as Jeff Balkiry, a 17 year old high school student who meets Sonic and his friends.
 * Bruce Willis as Dr. Robotnik, an evil scientific genius with a plan to rule the world.
 * Denzel Washington as Thomas Mackerel, a military general in Area 51.
 * Danny DeVito as Edward Balkiry, Jeff's grandpa who works on scientific stuff in his underground lab.
 * Christina Ricci as Chloe Sanchez, Thomas' personal assistant.
 * Dakota Johnson as Stacy, a girl Jeff likes but gets rejected by.
 * Alec Baldwin and Jennifer Saunders as Martin and Judith Balkiry, Jeff's parents.
 * John Goodman as President Earle, the president who declares war on Robotnik and his badniks.
 * Skyler Gisondo as Timothy, Jeff's neighbor.
 * John Travolta as Mayor West, the mayor.
 * Michael Learner as Uncle Mike, Jeff's uncle.

Yuji Naka, Sonic's co-creator makes an appearance as a store salesman.

Voices

 * Robert Pattinson as Sonic the Hedgehog: A anthropomorphic blue hedgehog who can run very fast.
 * Pattinson also voices Shadow the Hedgehog: A black hedgehog who looks like Sonic and is the ultimate life form.
 * Anna Faris as Miles "Tails" Prower: A genius fox boy who invents gadgets.
 * Idris Elba as Knuckles the Echidna: A red strong echidna with boxing gloves, and guardered the Chaos Emeralds until they were stolen by Robotnik.
 * Emma Stone as Amy Rose: A pink hedgehog with her piko-piko hammer, who is the love interest for Sonic.
 * Tim Curry as Metal Sonic: a robotic copy of Sonic created by Robotnik.
 * Gary A. Hecker as Robotnik Robo: Robotnik's metallic henchman.
 * Frank Welker and Dee Bradley Baker provide the vocals of the badniks, Robotnik's evil inventions.

Previous attempts
In 1994, writer Richard Jefferies pitched to Sega a Sonic movie titled Sonic the Hedgehog: Wonders of the World, about Sonic coming to the live-action world. Sega approved of the idea and it was made to tie in with the 3D game Sonic X-treme set to release on the Sega Saturn in 1996. However, due to the trouble development of the game with tight schedule as well as restarting production over and over, and an ill crew member, the game was cancelled and the movie never came to fruition.

Another Sonic movie was pitched in 2002 when Sonic Archie comic writer Ben Hurst pitched an movie idea to Sega as a continuation to the TV show Sonic SatAM, titled Sonic Apocalypse. The film also never came to fruition.

Development
In mid 2003, famous movie director James Cameron pitched another idea to Sega about an Sonic movie with his draft. Originally Sega declined, but when Cameron bought on Simpsons developer James L. Brooks to rewrite the script, Sega approved it. "Sega absolutely loved it," said Cameron "they hit the greenlight button immediately." It wasn't until January 2004, when ABC News' website announced the untitled Sonic movie in development. Fans of Sonic became instantly excited but it wasnt until the next month where Cameron actually announced the development of the movie.

Spike Lee, also interested in directing a Sonic movie, signed onto the project, as co-dorector originally. But there was a problem. "Cameron was involved in like, 4% of the film," Lee said. "He had to also make Avatar, which he was working on since the freakin' 90s. James didn't even come to the world premiere, and I had to take his role as lead director, I'd tell him about updates on the film he'd just say "Okay that's good keep working on it." and we did it without him." Cameron did not receive director's credit and has not talked about this film since a 2018, 10 year anniversary interview. Lee says he refuses to talk about the film but has not told why. Brad Bird replaced Cameron in his spot. Lee stated that he "kinda" liked the Sonic franchise for a long time and had always wanted to direct a movie based off it. Bird stated he was also a fan of the franchise and that his kids were big fans of the game, including Sonic Adventure 2 and Sonic Heroes.

Lee tried having Sony distribute their film, with them opening a new animation studio, titled Sony Pictures Animation. However, Sony declined the offer to distribute the movie. Eventually, former 20th Century Fox president Peter Liguori expressed interest to Bird and Lee in helping distribute the film. Lee and Bird accepted the offer, and it was announced in early 2006 that 20th Century Fox would be distributing the movie. Yuji Naka, Sonic's co-creator who was working on the franchise from 1991-2005, announced he would be executive producing the film. Sega also enlisted the help of Walden Media to distribute the film. At that time, Walden Media was only five years old. The film would be distributed by Sega, 20th Century Fox, and WaldenMedia.

In 2007, a contract deal was leaked online that if the film was a box-office success, that it would be renewed for a trilogy. Later, Fox fired the anymonous person who leaked the contract.

Writing
James Cameron and Spike Lee wanted to bring some new writer onto the film to rechange Brooks' draft. Lee wanted an independent writer with greater ideas, while Cameron wanted a famous writer. Every writer they found declined the offer, so they decided to use Brooks' original draft. When Brooks heard about this, he was angry and thought about suing Cameron and Lee, but decided to settle it calmly. Brooks would go on to write the script for the movie, "50% original, 50% reused" while making new revisions to the draft.

A problem Brooks had was working on The Simpsons Movie while writing the script. To solve this, Brooks used half of the stuff he had used in his original draft to save more time, so he can work on The Simpsons Movie. By the time the film entered development, Brooks was already working on The Simpsons Movie. Lee unknowingly did an uncredited rewrite. A rewrite was when Jeff meets Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, and Shadow for the first time on the beach. Lee did this because he felt the scene was stupid. The original scene was Jeff using a metal detector to find Sonic and his friends frozen on a ship under the sand in the beach, and then brings it to his grandpa's lab, when they thaw them and they come back alive.

Lee felt this was stupid because "how would Jeff bring the ship to his grandpa's house without anybody looking at him suspiciously?" Brooks was uninformed of the rewrite and in the world premiere, when he saw the scene was removed from the final version, he was upset and walked out of the theater. He was mad at Lee, but forgave him later on. Despite this, Brooks would say he did not like the movie. "It felt stupid to me despite it being my script. The Mobian species, Jeff's grandpa having a lab, the original frozen ship scene, it feels so ridiculous. If you like the film, that's ok but, I just didn't like it." A script leak from the film revealed Shadow was going to be in the film.

Animation and designs
When 20th Century Fox agreed to distribute the film, Lee and Bird would also agree to have their animation division 20th Century Animation provide the animation for the film. With the Sega company also distributing the film, they would have their own animation division Marza Animation Planet provide the animation too. This news of the two animation studios teaming up was first announced in December 2006.

Animation would begin in February 2007. Since Marza was working on cutscenes for Sonic Unleashed, Sega and Fox made a decision. Sega decided to split the Marza Animation team in half. Half the Marza staff would work on the Sonic Unleashed while the other half would work on the movie, along with 23 people from 20th Century Animation moving into Marza Animation to work on the animation. Work on the animation lasted for five months. From February to July 2007. When the animation was finished, the 23 Fox people went back to 20th Century Animation.

Bird originally wanted the CGI characters to have fur on their skin, like other characters in CG / live-action movies, but after seeing the negative reaction of an Alvin and the Chipmunks movie teaser, Bird decided against this. Instead, the animators put a tiny bit of fur on the characters, except for Metal Sonic and the badniks. The animators got the source of Metal Sonic and badniks' metal from using real scrap metal, and modelling a version of Metal Sonic. The team bought back Metal Sonic's design from 2003's Sonic Heroes, while they bought back many badniks from classic games such as the Motobugs, Buzzbombers, and animals such as Flickies. South Island from the original Sonic the Hedgehog was considered being boight back, but the team decided more on West Side Island since they "thought it had more lore."

Casting
Juliet Taylor was announced as casting director for the movie in September 2005. While trying to find a actor for Jeff, the main character, she found Michael Cera while watching Arrested Development. She contacted Michael Cera's agents and he came down to the studio and auditioned for Jeff. Taylor casted Cera for the role as she felt a charm in Cera's character. This would be Cera's third major film appearance, after Superbad and Juno. After that, it was announced Cera would be playing Jeff Balkiry, the main character of the movie.

Taylor was also given a task to find a voice for Sonic. She held many different auditions for voices for Sonic, until Robert Pattinson came in. Coincidentally, Pattinson came in uninvited just when Taylor was leaving. According to Pattinson, Taylor instructed him to make a kind of high pitched American accent, like going for Jason Griffith's Sonic. Robert Pattinson did a "great performance" according to Taylor and he got the job. To prepare, Pattinson watched many voice clips of Jason Griffith's Sonic to imitate and sound like him. Taylor also held auditions for Shadow. Pattinson came again and gave a deep pitched voice that "sounded like a combination of David Humphrey and Jason Griffith's Shadows." Pattinson approached Taylor to ask if he could play Sonic and Shadow. Taylor sent Sega executives to hear Pattinson's voice, and they loved it. So Robert Pattinson was cast as Sonic and Shadow for the film.

More news would come out about casting. Eventually it was announced, Danny DeVito, Jennifer Saunders, Alec Baldwin, Christina Ricci, and Tim Curry would be starring in the film. Ricci announced her role as an military assistant while Danny DeVito would be Jeff's grandpa lab genius. At that time, it was unknown if Dr. Eggman was going to be in the movie, many fans speculated about what his role would be and what he would do. It was announced Bruce Willis would be taking the role of Eggman, now renamed in this movie into his original American name, Dr. Robotnik. The casting of Willis received some controversy from fans, some praising it, some criticizing it, until Willis, in an interview did a impression of Deem Bristow's Robotnik. Because of that, more people started to think casting Willis was an good idea.

Emma Stone and Idris Elba were also cast in the voice roles for the characters as Amy and Knuckles, respectively, with the appearance of Amy's iconic piko-piko hammer. Yuji Naka, Sonic's co-creator who was also the programmer for the three Genesis Sonic games, made an cameo in the film as a store salesman. Bird wanted to get Naoto Oshima to make a cameo too, but was not able to contact him. Despite that, Oshima attended the world premiere along with Naka. Anna Faris was cast as Tails in the movie shortly after.

Frank Welker and Dee Bradley Baker, two veteran voice actors, had a small role in the film, voicing Robotnik's badniks in the movie. Gary A. Hecker voices Robotnik Robo, the henchman of Robotnik, and also voices the badniks too.

Soundtrack
Brad and Lee hired Hans Zimmer to work on the soundtrack sfter being impressed with hos toher previous works. Zimmer said he had to assemble 97 people to compose orchestra music and the process took "about 5-8 minutes total." They wanted to choose John Williams but since he was too expensive for the budget of the film. They also wanted to chose Danny Elfman but he was also too expensive. So they decided to go with Hans Zimmer as a less expensive choice for them to save time and money.

While eating at an restaurant, Bird thought of a song in his head. He pitched the idea of having a famous singer sing his idea for a song titled "Help Me Push Through." Lee loved the idea and held auditions for people to sing a song. They went through eight singers before finding Avril Lavigne, an already famous singer and songwriter who had already wrote multiple songs. Bird and Lee heard her voice and thought she'd be perfect for the role. They spent a month and a half recording and composing the music for the song. After the song was done, Lavigne offered to make a cameo in the movie, but it was too late since filming was already done. Lavigne finished the song with her crew and Bird and Lee and went to the international world premiere of the movie.

Release
Sonic the Hedgehog the Movie had its international world premiere on June 15, 2008, and then a few days later, releasing on June 23rd, to celebrate Sonic's 17 anniversary. The film was originally set to release on July 11, but Bird and Lee declined saying that June 23rd was the perfect date for it being Sonic Day.

Marketing
For the film, 20th Century Fox and Sega made a deal with McDonalds to release toys on June 24, a day after the film came out and release toys of the Sonic characters. As a joke, McDonalds even included a toy with a yellow and white orange hedgehog named "Jeff the Hedgehog", with the same shirt that Jeff wears in the movie. Kelloggs made a deal with Sega to release Sonic-branded cereal. The cereal was released on shelves June 30 titled Sonic Flakes which featured cereal shaped like Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy and even Shadow. Kellogs released Sonic Flakes for the other sequels up until 2021.

Home media
Sonic the Hedgehog the Movie was released on DVD and Blu-ray on September 1 in North America, later releasing in Japan, China, and Mexico on DVD on September 19. During its first three days, there were two million sales of the DVDs and one million sales on Blu-ray, proving the sales on Blu-ray and DVD to be a massive success. It was rereleased on home media again on June 24, 2009 and included a sneak peak trailer of the sequel, Sonic the Hedgehog: Triple Trouble and also had special stuff in it like music (named "Sound Test" as a nod to the original games), scenes, behind the scenes footage, and even a minigame Chao Garden, which originated from Sonic Adventure.

On June 23, 2023, it was rereleased on 4K UHD Blu-ray for the film's 15th anniversary.

Box office
In the film's opening weekend, it grossed $11 million, which in an interview, Lee and Bird called it an "amazing thing", as they would announce that they'd continue the movies, if the first film's box office was a success. In the follwing four weeks, it managed to gross over $300 million, and by the end of its run in theateres from June 23 to August 31, it grossed $644 million on a budget of $207 million, dollars deeming it a box-office success. It also became the third highest grossing film of 2008.

Reception
The review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gave the film an approval rating on 71% based on 145 reviews and a average rating of 7.7/10. Its critical consenus reads: "Sonic the Hedgehog the Movie is a good film for everyone, including non Sonic fans. The CGI is outstanding for its time, and the acting is great, especially from Bruce Willis who steals the show." Metacritic assigned the film a score of 65 out of 100, indicating positive reviews. Roger Ebert gave the film a positive review, three stars out of four stars, calling it "a goofy fun film that everybody should watch, including non-fans." The Denver Post's Lisa Stepkram praised the animation, calling it the best CGI animation she had ever seen. IGN's Tod Gilchrist called it the second best film of 2008, also calling it "a film where its undeniably really fun." Ken Fox of TVGuide.com called it a "great film and worthy of winning an oscar." Cinemascore's audience graded it an "A" on an A+ to F scale. Michael Cera received critical praise for his role as Jeff. Jordan Mintszer of The Hollywood Reporter praised Michael Cera, for being able to act like a nerdy kid who has his moments and bravery and confidence.

However, some critcism was pointed at the writing and runtime. Joe Srami of Entertainment Weekly criticized the film for this, saying that ”the pointless filler is what makes the movie so long and it feels like it drags out for so long despite only being two hours." Ty Burr criticized the screenwriting, pointing out the movie's many flaws, and also pointing out the runtime of the movie. When the film released, fans also had praise for the film, with some calling it "nearly flawless." Fan polls on the Sonic website showed that 93% of Sonic fans had loved the movie. Ranks showed that 2/3 of the audience watching the movie was fans of Sonic the Hedgehog. Although before release, fans were skeptical of the film, saying that it would turn out like the Rocky & Bullwinkle movie.

Also on Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a audience score of 83%.

Controversy
Upon release, the film originally garnered controversy for its dark tone in PG-13. Many people barraded the film for a reference to the September 11 attacks and Chernobyl. This controversy was later disregarded and forgotten. But in 2013, James L. Brooks bought up the controversy saying, "We wanted to make the film more darker. Some people say Sonic isn’t supposed to be taken seriously, but I took him seriously." It also garnered controversy for the amount of swear words in the movie.

Sequel
A sequel, titled Sonic the Hedgehog Triple Trouble, was announced in August 2008, and later released on October 10, 2010.