Sonic the Hedgehog (2007 film)

Sonic the Hedgehog (released as Sonic Adventure: The Movie in some countries) is a 2004 fantasy adventure action film directed by Michael Bay and written by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. Based on the video game franchise published by Sega, it is the first installment in the original Sonic the Hedgehog film series. The film’s voice acting cast includes Ben Schwartz, Karen Bernstein, Dwayne Johnson, Hannah Tointon, Kathryn Newton, Elara Distler, Jim Carrey, Tyler Perry, and Ron Perlman. Film follows a blue hedgehog named Sonic the Hedgehog, and his friends, Miles “Tails” Prower, Knuckles the Echidna, Amy Rose, E-102 Gamma, and Tikal to stop the evil Dr. Robotnik and the water god, Chaos.

20th Century Fox bought the film rights to the game in November 1999 for a reported £1 million ($1.65 million). Production began in 2000, with Michael Bay being chosen to create the film from a shortlist of producers that included Steven Spielberg and J.J. Abrams. After Fox put the project in turnaround, Warner Bros. acquired it in December. Exercising its option on just two elements from the multi-script acquisition (a different screenplay was written by James Cameron, Ted Newsom, John Brancato, Barney Cohen, and Joseph Goldman), Warner Bros. hired Scorsese to create a working screenplay (credited as Cameron's), and Abrams received sole credit in final billing. Directors Tim Burton, Roland Emmerich, Ang Lee, Chris Columbus, Jan de Bont, M. Night Shyamalan, Tony Scott, and David Fincher were considered to direct the project before Bay was hired as director in 2001. The main characters were cast between March and May 2001 and principal photography took place between November 2002 and July 2003 in Los Angeles. Industrial Light & Magic handled the motion-capture characters.

It premiered in Tokyo International Film Festival on October 25, 2004, also premiered in Japan on July 18, 2005, and was theatrically released in Los Angeles on December 10, 2005, and on December 14 in the United States. The film was acclaimed by both critics and audiences, who consider it to be a landmark in filmmaking and the fantasy film genre, with praise for the visual effects, performances, action sequences, direction, screenplay, musical score, costume design and emotional depth. It grossed $395 million worldwide, making it the ninth-highest-grossing film of 2005. After its success, the film spawned two sequels, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Sonic the Hedgehog 3, released in 2009 and 2011 respectively.

Plot
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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
 * Jim Carrey as Dr. Robotnik / Dr. Eggman
 * Tyler Perry as E-102 Gamma
 * Ron Perlman as Chaos

Pre-production
In May 1999, 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 Bay 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." Bay 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?" The two wrote the script during a month-long vacation in Mexico, and just one day after they sent it out for consideration, Martin Scorsese greenlit the screenplay. Bay proposed the pitch to producers Broderick Johnson and Andrew Rosove, founders of Alcon Entertainment. Johnson then pitched Bay's idea to 20th Century Fox, whose executives liked the idea and commissioned Bay to write the script.Carin Sage at Creative Artists Agency read Bay's script and made Spielberg, who was one of the agency's clients, aware of it. At the same time, Rosove picked up the script and became interested in the film.

As Kosove explained climate change to Scorcese, 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, specially to write the brother dynamics. In December 2000, Village Roadshow Pictures also purchased the filming rights. A month later, after Fox put the project into turnaround, Sonic the Hedgehog was pitched and accepted by Warner Bros.

Pre-production began just a month later in January 2001. 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.

A then-record 3,000-plus special effects shots would ultimately be required for the film. The shoot utilized on-set, in-camera special effects more often than computer-generated effects in an effort to save money and get more authentic pyrotechnic results. Many of these shots were accomplished at Hughes Aircraft in Culver City, California, where the film's art department, motion control photography teams, pyrotechnics team, and model shop were headquartered. The production's model-making department built more than twice as many miniatures for the production than had ever been built for any film before by creating miniatures for buildings, city streets, aircraft, landmarks, and monuments. The crew also built miniatures for several of the spaceships featured in the film, including a 30-foot (9.1 m) destroyer model and a version of the mother ship spanning 12 feet (3.7 m). City streets were recreated, then tilted upright beneath a high-speed camera mounted on a scaffolding filming downwards. An water explosion would be ignited below the model, and water would rise towards the camera, engulfing the tilted model and creating the rolling "wall of destruction" look seen in the film.

The film's aliens were designed by production designer Rick Carter. The actual aliens in the film are diminutive and based on a design Tatopoulos drew when tasked by Emmerich to create an alien that was "both familiar and completely original". These creatures wear "bio-mechanical" suits that are based on another design Tatopoulos pitched to Emmerich. 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 three or four weeks 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, 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-102 Gamma. Frank Welker was considered for the role of Chaos before Ron Perlman was chosen.

Release
The first trailer premiered in theaters on January 14, 2005 with the release of Racing Stripes. Just four months later, another trailer was unveiled on May 6, 2005, debuting with Spongebob Squarepants' "Fear of a Krabby Patty" during the fourth season and in theaters with the release of Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith the next day on May 19.

Reception
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Sequels
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Transcripts
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