Tickets are now available for one of the most controversial video game film adaptations of all time, Sonic The Hedgehog.
Advance tickets can currently be purchased through Fandango and Atom Tickets. This film will star Parks and Recreation’s Ben Schwartz as Sonic The Hedgehog and comedian Jim Carrey as the hero’s arch nemesis Doctor Ivo Robotnik. The film will release on February 14, making it a Valentine’s Day movie.
Of course, this film was actually supposed to release last year, but there was some serious backlash that had to be addressed by the studio after the release of the first trailer.
Movie fans everywhere were slightly horrified by the original design of Sonic. He looked less like the video game character fans have come to know through countless game titles and three animated cartoons, and more like an actual hedgehog. The results were fairly terrifying, and it completely broke the internet for several days.
However, in a rare move for a major studio, Paramount Pictures responded to the fan backlash, pulling the movie from its original release date to go back to the drawing board and redesign the character from scratch.
When the studio put out the redesigned trailer with an all-new look and release date, fans were very happy with what they saw. Sonic now more resembled the same character gamers have known and loved for nearly three decades.
The film is expected to have a strong opening weekend, with box office estimates somewhere between $40-47 million. Of course, that’s still below last year’s Detective Pikachu, which holds the record for the highest opening video game adaptation of all time. Sonic could come in second place, which is nothing to turn your nose up at.
Sonic has appeared on the big screen only once. In Disney’s Wreck It Ralph, he made a cameo appearance as an announcer who explained certain plot elements about how the movie’s video game world worked.
Of course, Sonic has also sped onto the small screen several times. In the 90s, there were two Sonic cartoons that aired simultaneously, with one being decidedly more kid-friendly than the other. In these original shows, Sonic was voiced by Jaleel White, who is best known for portraying Steve Urkel on Family Matters.
Then, the anime series Sonic X came to American televisions. This series more closely followed the storylines of Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2, both of which were released for the short-lived Sega Dreamcast console.
