Sonic the Hedgehog (2007 film)

Sonic the Hedgehog is a 2006 science fantasy action-adventure comedy film co-written and directed by Michael Bay, produced by Walter F. Parkes, Broderick Johnson, Andrew Kosove, and Nintendo and written by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. Based on the video game franchise published by Sega, it is the third film in the Nintendo Cinematic Universe (NCU). The film stars Ben Schwartz, Karen Bernstein, Dwayne Johnson, Hannah Tointon, Kathryn Newton, Elara Distler, Jim Carrey, Tyler Perry, and Ron Perlman. The film retells the same events of both Sonic Adventure (1998) and Sonic Battle (2003), with Dr. Eggman hatching plans to resurrect the legend of Chaos, and Sonic and his friends uniting together to defeat them.

20th Century Fox bought the film rights to the game in November 1999 for a reported $1.65 million. Director Michael Bay conceived the film while answering a question about his belief in the existence of alien life. They both conceived the idea for Sonic the Hedgehog in 2000. They were desperate for a successful film after numerous collaborative failures, but the project was rejected more than forty times by various studios because it was not considered raunchy enough to compete with the successful comedies of the era. A development deal was secured with Fox following Bay's success directing Bad Boys II (2003). After Fox put the project in turnaround, Warner Bros. acquired it in January 2002. The main characters were cast between September 2002 and March 2003 and principal photography took place between October 2003 and September 2004 in San Francisco, Boston,, with additional filming and pick-ups taking place in April and November 2005.

The film premiered in Los Angeles on December 7, 2006, and on December 22 in the United States, and in Japan on January 11, 2007, as part of Phase One in the NCU. The film was acclaimed by both critics and audiences, who consider it to be a landmark in filmmaking and the video-game-based film genre, with praise for the visual effects, performances, action sequences, direction, screenplay, musical score, costume design, emotional depth, animated characters, and the cast's performances, although its screenplay, runtime and pacing drew criticism. It set the record for the biggest opening weekend for a video game film in the United States and Canada and grossed $874 million worldwide, becoming the second-highest-grossing film of 2006. After its success, the film was followed by four sequels: Sonic the Hedgehog: Project Shadow (2010), and Sonic the Hedgehog: Episode Metal (2014).

Plot
Coming soon

Voice cast

 * Ben Schwartz as Sonic the Hedgehog
 * Karen Bernstein as Miles "Tails" Prower
 * Dwayne Johnson as Knuckles the Echidna
 * Hannah Tointon as Amy Rose
 * Kathryn Newton as Cream the Rabbit
 * | Elera Distler as Tikal
 * Tyler Perry as E-123 Omega
 * Ron Perlman as Chaos

Live-action cast

 * Clark Gregg as ??? ???
 * Gary Shandling as President ???
 * William Hurt as ??? ???
 * Jim Carrey as Dr. Robotnik / Dr. Eggman

Pre-production
In November 1999, producer Steven Spielberg, founder of Amblin Entertainment, first approached 20th Century Fox about adapting the 1998 video game Sonic Adventure into a film, after having seen other offers. Spielberg and screenwriter Ehren Kruger decided to expand on the idea by incorporating a large-scale attack, with Spielberg saying he was bothered by the fact that "for the most part, in sci-fi movies, they come down to Earth and they're hidden in some back field …or they arrive in little spores and inject themselves into the back of someone's head." Schmaus agreed by asking Spielberg if arriving from across the galaxy for some island, "would you hide on a farm or would you make a big entrance?" On August 28, 2000, the two wrote the script, and just one day after they sent it out for consideration, Robert Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and Martin Scorsese greenlit the screenplay. Kruger proposed the pitch to producers Broderick Johnson and Andrew Kosove, founders of Alcon Entertainment. Johnson then pitched Schmaus' idea to Fox, whose executives liked the idea and commissioned Spike Lee to write the script. Carin Sage at Creative Artists Agency read Kruger's script and made Spielberg aware of it. At the same time, Kosove picked up the script and became interested in the film.

As Johnson explained climate change to director Michael Bay and Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto, he asked why a machine could not be built to fix that. Kosove went on to imagine such a thing, and how it could be used for evil purposes. As he struggled to develop his script, he asked the help of George Lucas, both founders of Lucasfilm and THX, specially to write the brother dynamics. In December 2001, Bruce Berman, both chairman and CEO of Village Roadshow Pictures, and Nintendo also both purchased the filming rights.

Bay accepted the next project offered to him, Bad Boys II (2003). Against expectations, the film was a significant success, and gave Lucas enough credibility to return to Sonic the Hedgehog. Miyamoto held a grudge against the studios that had rejected the project and turned to Paramount Pictures president Sherry Lansing, where he now worked. Jeff Bewkes installed himself as chief executive to oversee the studio's investment in the project. Amblin executives Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall joined Spielberg as the film's executive producers.

However, rights to Sonic the Hedgehog remained with Paramount. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warner_Bros. Warner Bros.] president, David Zaslov, was developing a satire of the Warner Bros-owned film Batman (1989) called The Matrix (1999). Its similarities to Batman meant the studio would violate Warner Bros.' copyright. With production imminent, Lansing asked for the rights from Zaslov; in exchange, Zaslov obtained the rights to the film. A month later, after Fox put the project into turnaround, the film was pitched and accepted by Warner Bros. for U.S. and Paramount for international distributors.

Pre-production began just four months later in early May 2002. The U.S. military originally intended to provide personnel, vehicles, and costumes for the film; however, they backed out when the producers refused to remove the script's Area 51 references. The film's aliens were designed by production designer Rick Carter. The actual aliens in the film are diminutive and based on a design Carter drew when tasked by James Schmaus to create an alien that was "both familiar and completely original". These creatures wear "bio-mechanical" suits that are based on another design Carter pitched to Bay. These suits were 8 feet (2.4 m) tall, equipped with 25 tentacles, and purposely designed to show it could not sustain a person inside so it would not appear to be a "man in a suit".

Casting
Drake Bell was initially offered the role of Sonic the Hedgehog, but turned it down without reading the script. Chris Evans was also offered the role of Sonic, before Ben Schwartz was ultimately cast five or six months before filming began. Schwartz said "it all happened real quick. I hadn't reviewed the game, knew nothing about it, hadn't heard anything about it, and in a matter of weeks I'm working with Spielberg". Ellen Lewis, the film's casting director, felt Karen Bernstein would be the right choice to play Tails after reviewing the game. Jim Carrey also auditioned for the role. According to Lewis, Carrey "was terrific, too, but I think pretty quickly we all loved the idea of Dr. Robotnik", so he was cast.

Dwayne Johnson had previously worked on acting performance in The Scorpion King (2002), and initially auditioned for the role of Knuckles the Echidna. Hannah Tointon was Spielberg's first choice for the role of Amy Rose though she was not the only actress offered the part. Robin Wright turned down the role. Elara Distler auditioned for the role of Tikal. Spielberg chose to cast Kathryn Newton as Cream the Rabbit since 2002. Tyler Perry also auditioned for the role of E-123 Omega. Frank Welker was considered for the role of Chaos before Ron Perlman was chosen.

Filming
Principal photography began on October 19, 2003, in Vancouver, under the working title of Station Square, with scenes shot at the Vancouver Convention & Exhibition Centre, inside BC Place, and at Hi-View Lookout in Cypress Provincial Park, West Vancouver (as San Francisco's Bay Area Park). This was followed by filming in the Richmond neighborhood of Steveston. A large battle scene was shot in Downtown Boston, involving approximately 200 soldiers and many military vehicles. Another scene was filmed at the fisherman's wharf along Finn Slough. Additional shooting took place on Vancouver Island, around Nanaimo and Victoria in British Columbia. Additional filming involving extras took place around industrial areas of Coquitlam, British Columbia. The following month, secondary filming took place about an hour outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the Butler area. A chase sequence was also shot in Worthington, Pennsylvania at Creekside Mushroom Farms, the world's largest single-site mushroom farm, which provided 150 miles of abandoned limestone tunnels 300 feet below the ground for filming. Filming took place in Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California.

On March 18, 2004, the crew began shooting at Dominica, a location Bay had selected as he felt it fitted the sense of remoteness he was looking for. However, this was also a problem; the Dominican government were completely unprepared for the scale of a Hollywood production, as while the 500-strong crew occupying around 90% of the roads on the island they had trouble moving around on the underdeveloped surfaces. At Hawaii, the sequences involving Mystic Ruins and the forest segment of the battle were shot. Bay preferred to use practical props for the giant bridge and metal cage sequences, feeling long close-up shots would help further suspend the audience's disbelief. Filming on the island concluded on May 26, 2004.

Production relocated to Chicago in early-June 2004, where filming took place in North Wells Street to be used in climactic battle scenes over a period of four weeks. Army Reserve soldiers assigned to the Columbus, Ohio-based 391st Military Police Battalion provided background action during the battle scenes in Chicago. Staff Sergeant Michael T. Landis stated the use of real soldiers made the scenes more realistic and helped portray the military in a more positive light, explaining that, "It's easy for us to make on-the-spot corrections to tactics and uniforms. The director actually took our recommendation on one scene and let us all engage the enemy as opposed to only the gunners in the trucks engaging". Filming also took place in the large vacuum chamber at the NASA Plum Brook Station near Sandusky, Ohio. A series of water explosions were filmed at Boston Harbor, as part of the final battle sequence that began. Scenes from the film were also shot in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Some aircraft carrier scenes were filmed on board the US Navy aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, while additional scenes were shot on board the similar Nimitz and Carl Vinson between July and late-September 2004. The 11-month shoot proceeded as scheduled (From October 19, 2003), and concluded on September 22, 2004. On April 17, 2005, pick-ups were conducted as Bay sought to film more action scenes. The film then wrapped in November, although additional special effects shots were taken to finalize the production a month later. In early 2006, there were further pick-up shots regarding the resolution of Tikal's story, amounting to four different versions.

Post-production
The visual effects are provided by Moving Picture Company (MPC), Blur Studio, and Digital Domain. The production team created a realistic version of Sonic using computer animation, adding fur, new running sneakers, two separate eyes, and a more human like physique. They used Dobby, the house elf from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), as a reference to insert a CGI character into a real-world setting. Executive producer Berman said: "It would be weird, and it would feel like he was running around naked if he was some sort of otter-like thing. It was always, for us, fur, and we never considered anything different. It's part of what integrates him into the real world and makes him a real creature." According to Spielberg, Sega was not "entirely happy" with the design of Sonic's eyes.

On February 2, 2006, in response to the criticism, Bay announced on Facebook that Sonic would be redesigned. The film was delayed from its original release date of May 5, 2006, to December 22, as a result. Artist Sango Norimoto, who worked on previous Sonic the Hedgehog media, was brought on to lead the redesign. Sonic was given larger and differently colored eyes, new sneakers, white gloves, and a less humanlike body to better resemble Sonic 's video game design. Sonic was redesigned by Double Negative. The redesign added an estimated $5 million to the production budget, took around five months, and was achieved without overtime.

Music

 * Further infromation: Sonic the Hedgehog (soundtrack) and Music of the Nintendo Cinematic Universe

In March 2006, Sega announced that Jun Senoue, would write and compose the score for Sonic the Hedgehog. Kosove had a clear vision of heavy metal music and guitars for the project, saying that Sonic was more of a rock star than a traditional hero. Senoue subsequently composed most of the film's score on guitar, before arranging it for orchestra. Senoue had help with arrangements and additional cues from Hans Zimmer, Steve Jablonsky, Brian Tyler, and Senoue's band Crush 40, who is best known for their contributions to the Sonic the Hedgehog video game series, contributed guitar performances to the score, mixing electronica with composition influences. Two soundtracks were released for the film. The first one features mostly rock and dance music. The second one features alternative metal, post-grunge and nu metal songs from Crush 40, as well as select tracks from the band's score, released by Warner Bros. Records on November 18, 2006.

Marketing
The first trailer premiered in theaters on February 10, 2006 with the release of The Pink Panther. Just nearly four months later, another trailer was unveiled on June 9, 2006, and was attached to the screenings of Cars.

Theatrical
Sonic the Hedgehog had its world premiere at Los Angeles in California on December 7, 2006, was released theatrically in the United States by Warner Bros. Pictures on December 22, 2006, and internationally by Paramount Pictures on January 11, 2007. Promotional partners included Burger King, Dr Pepper, Kraft Foods, Kellogg's, and Embassy Suites Hotels. Sonic the Hedgehog is part of Phase One of the NCU.

Home media
The film was released by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment on DVD and HD-DVD (in separate widescreen and pan and scan editions) on May 22, 2007, and on Blu-ray Disc on June 24, 2008, in the United States and Canada, and June 30, 2007 in most of Europe. DVD sales were very successful, selling over 4 million copies the first week and generating a gross of over US$93 million. There were a total of 9 million copies sold and an accumulated total sales of over $160 million (not including Blu-ray).

The film was also collected in a 10-disc box set titled "Nintendo Cinematic Universe: Phase One – The Beginning" which includes all of the Phase One films in the Nintendo Cinematic Universe, was released on June 22, 2010.

Box office
Sonic the Hedgehog grossed $304 million in the United States and Canada, and $570.7 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $874.7 million. It was the second-highest-grossing film of 2006, the highest-grossing superhero film of the year, and was the highest-grossing film distributed by Warner Bros. until 2008's The Dark Knight. The film's budget was estimated at being between $85 million and $90 million.

In the United States and Canada, the film was released alongside The Good Shepherd, Night at the Museum, and We Are Marshall, and was initially projected to gross $40–50 million from 4,130 theaters in its four-day Christmas opening weekend. After making $21 million on its first day (including $3 million from Thursday night previews), estimates were raised to $64 million. It went on to top the box office with a $58 million debut over the three-day weekend, and $70 million over the four, breaking Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – The Cradle of Life 's record for the biggest opening weekend by a video game-based film. It was also the fourth-best Christmas holiday weekend and Jim Carrey's second biggest opening weekend, behind Bruce Almighty (2003). The success was attributed in part to the redesign of Sonic and the publicity it created, and the delayed release date, which meant it opened with less competition from other family films.Opening day audiences were 56% male and 44% female, with 70% under 25 years and 30% over 25 years. In its second weekend, Sonic the Hedgehog made $26.2 million and retained the top spot at the box office, bringing its ten-day domestic gross to $106.6 million. On February 14, 2007, it became the highest-grossing film based on a video game in US box office history, surpassing The Cradle of Life.

Sonic the Hedgehog was released in 40 countries during its three-day opening weekend, topping the international box office with $43 million. Its strongest international regions were Latin America and Europe, with its largest openings being $6.7 million in Mexico, $6.2 million in the United Kingdom, $4.3 millionin France, $3.3 million in Germany, and $3 million in Brazil. Worldwide, it made $101 million over the three-day weekend and $113 million over the four days. In its second weekend the film again topped the international box office with $38.3 million from 56 countries for a ten-day overseas gross of $96.5 million, and topped the global box office again with $64.6 million for a ten-day worldwide gross of $203.1 million. Its largest international markets in its first ten days were the United Kingdom ($19.1 million), Mexico ($12.3 million), and France ($9.1 million), retaining the top spot in these markets. The film opened in 16 new markets, led by a number-one debut in Russia ($6.3 million). The film was released in Japan on January 11, 2007 and debuted at No. 6 that weekend.

Sequels
Coming soon

Transcripts
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