It’s been a weird month for the upcoming live-action feature film version of Sonic the Hedgehog. First up was that trailer, the one set to “Gangsta’s Paradise”, which first and foremost showed off a version of Sonic with humanoid eyes and teeth. The flurry of memes that followed led to a full-on public apology from director Jeff Fowler, who assured audiences that they’d change the heavily memed new design before the film’s release.
That in turn led to concerns from many, who suspected that keeping the film’s original early-November release date would mean a summer full of unbearable schedule crunch for effects artists tasked with fixing the look of a CGI character that appears in a majority of the film. People might’ve done a lot of guttural yelling on line upon looking at Sonic, but that doesn’t mean that the choices of the people who designed the character are the fault of those who built it to their specifications.
Now, in a move probably lucky for all involved, Fowler announced on Twitter today that the release date has been pushed back three months, in order to accomodate the changes:
Taking a little more time to make Sonic just right.#novfxartistswereharmedinthemakingofthismovie pic.twitter.com/gxhu9lhU76
— Jeff Fowler (@fowltown) May 24, 2019
Well, at least if a studio is going to give in to the probably-actually-only-half-serious demands of the public, at least it’s not going to come at the expense of below-the-line workers. Sonic the Hedgehog will now arrive on February 14th, 2020, just in time for all the Valentine’s Day lovers.