Sonic the Hedgehog (2007 film)

Sonic the Hedgehog is a 2006 live-action/computer-animated fantasy adventure sci-fi action film co-written and directed by Michael Bay, produced by Nintendo and written by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. Based on the video game franchise published by Sega, it is the fourth film in the Nintendo Cinematic Multiverse (NCM). 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. The film retells the same events of both the original Sonic Adventure game 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. Production began in 2000, with Michael Bay being chosen to create the film from a shortlist of producers that included Steven Spielberg and Shigeru Miyamoto. 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, Tony Scott, and David Fincher were considered to direct the project before Bay was hired as director in 2001, after his film performances, Pearl Harbor and Bad Boys II. 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 November 2003 and September 2004 in Los Angeles, California, with additional filming and pick-ups taking place in April and November 2005.

The film premiered in Los Angeles on November 30, 2006, and on December 22 in the United States, and in Japan on January 11, 2007, as part of Phase One in the NCM. 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 grossed $874 million worldwide, making it 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
 * Jim Carrey as Dr. Robotnik / Dr. Eggman
 * Tyler Perry as E-123 Omega
 * Ron Perlman as Chaos

Live-action cast

 * Clark Gregg as ??? ???
 * Gary Shandling as President ???
 * William Hurt as ??? ???

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 James Schmaus 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, Martin Scorsese greenlit the screenplay. Bay 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 Schmaus' 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 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. A month later, after Fox put the project into turnaround, Sonic the Hedgehog was pitched and accepted by Warner Bros.

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 Tatopoulos drew when tasked by Bay 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 November 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 New York downtown, 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.

Production relocated to Chicago in March 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. The station's Space Power Facility was used to portray a G.U.N. research facility. A series of water explosions were filmed at the Market Street in San Francisco, as part of the battle sequence that began. Scenes from the film were also shot in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

On May 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. The weather also alternated between torrential rainstorms and hot temperatures, the latter of which was made worse for the cast who had to wear period clothing. At Dominica, the sequences involving Mystic Ruins (Angel Island) and the forest segment of the battle were shot. Bay preferred to use practical props for the giant bridge and transforming metal cage sequences, feeling long close-up shots would help further suspend the audience's disbelief. Filming on the island concluded on March 26, 2004. The 10-month shoot proceeded as scheduled (From November 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 Multiverse

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 superhero. Holkenborg subsequently composed most of the film's score on guitar, before arranging it for orchestra. Holkenborg had help with arrangements and additional cues from |Hans Hans Zimmer, Steve Jablonsky and Remote Control Productions, 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. A soundtrack featuring Holkenborg's score was 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 November 30, 2006, was released theatrically in the United States by Warner Bros. Pictures on December 22, 2006. Sonic the Hedgehog is part of Phase One of the NCM. The theatrical release also included a sneak peek for Bay's next own film, Transformers. Promotional partners included Burger King, Dr Pepper, Kraft Foods, Kellogg's, and Embassy Suites Hotels.

Home media
The film was released by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment on DVD and HD-DVD on May 22, 2007, and on Blu-ray Disc on December 2, 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 8-disc box set titled "Nintendo Cinematic Multiverse: Phase One – The Beginning" which includes all of the Phase One films in the Nintendo Cinematic Multiverse, was released on June 22, 2010.

Box office
Sonic the Hedgehog earned $619 million in the United States and Canada and $567.9 million in other territories, for a worldwide gross of $874.5 million. Worldwide, it is the second-highest-grossing film of 2006, and was the highest-grossing film distributed by Warner Bros. until 2008's The Dark Knight.

In its opening weekend, Sonic the Hedgehog grossed $874.6 million in 8,705 theaters in the United States and Canada, ranking first at the box office, giving it the eleventh biggest-opening weekend at the time, ninth-widest release in terms of theaters, and the third highest-grossing opening weekend of 2006 behind The Good Shepherd and Night at the Museum. It grossed $35.2 million on its first day, giving it the thirteenth biggest-opening day at the time. Sonic the Hedgehog had the second-best premiere for a non-sequel, behind Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – The Cradle of Life, and the fourth biggest-opening for a video game-based film. Sonic the Hedgehog was also the number one film in the U.S. and Canada in its second weekend, grossing $51.2 million, giving it the eighth-best second weekend and the fifth-best for a non-sequel. On May 19, 2007, Sonic the Hedgehog became that year's first film to pass the $300 million mark for the domestic box office.

Sequels
Coming soon

Transcripts
Coming soon