Sonic The Hedgehog is blasting toward his big screen debut

There is officially a Sonic the Hedgehog movie on the way. Sega have announced that they have reached a final agreement with Paramount Pictures to co-produce a Sonic the Hedgehog feature film. The release date has been announced as November 15th 2019 in the USA with a worldwide release to follow.

The upcoming Sonic Movie is announced to mix live action with CG elements and it is the first time Sonic has appeared on the big screen. Of course Sonic has always had an active life outside of gaming adventures. There have been multiple comic book series, breakfast television and multiple animated series. Plus several animated movies in Japan.

At this point the following industry veterans have signed on to the project

• Producer Neal H. Moritz from Original Film Inc. (“Fast and Furious” series)
• Director Jeff Fowler (Blur Studio, Academy Award® nominee for 2005 Best Animated Short Film “Gopher Broke”)
• Executive producer Tim Miller (director of the Marvel/Fox feature “Deadpool” and owner of animation and CG production company Blur Studio)

The production and development of the project is being handled by Marza Animation Planet which is a CG animation studio owned by Sega and based in Tokyo. At this point, essentially nothing is known about the story and there is no trailer or any video available. A Sonic the Hedgehog movie has been rumoured on and off for a very long time so to have confirmation that progress is actually being made will be highly anticipated.

Of course for a long time Sonic the Hedgehog was one of the biggest names in video games, arguably responsible for Sega’s dominance in the early 90’s. However since the rise of Sony and with Sega leaving the console business, it is largely accepted that his best days are behind him and perhaps even considered to be a relic of the 16 bit era of video games. Maybe a hot new movie and a great new game to match might be just what Sonic needs to make a run into 2020 and beyond.

Overall at the moment the jury is out as to whether it will actually make its release window, whether it will be any good and even whether it will make it through production at all. But with dates and partners locked in for now it wont be long before details start leaking out. As a well known advocate of both Sega and Sonic, the outcome I would like is a massive Christmas hit and a great new game to come with it. Maybe we will even see Sonic McDonalds figures in Happy Meals. But as mentioned, a lot of water is yet to go under the bridge and to be honest things could go either way.

A Sonic the Hedgehog Movie? What do you think?