Discussions about the new Sonic the Hedgehog movie have been ongoing online since the new design for the iconic Sega character was revealed with many people praising the new look and Paramount’s willingness to rework Sonic’s appearance. Within those discussions, there’s been speculation about how much this redesign may have cost Paramount since Sonic was totally rebuilt for this new version. One number that’s been circulating in these discussions has been a sizable cost of $35 million to factor the redesign into the budget, but it appears that the actual cost might’ve been much lower.
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IndieWire reported this week that the figure that’s been going around online may not be as accurate as people may suspect. Citing sources close to the production of Sonic the Hedgehog, IndieWire said the character redesign cost less than $5 million.
It’s a significant difference from the number that was first shared in the tweet below which has since been shared over 20,000 times on Twitter. RiseFallNick, the Twitter user who initially shared the numbers about Sonic the Hedgehog’s budget and how the redesign may have impacted it, updated the tweet’s threat more than once with the most recent one citing IndieWire’s report and saying the revised amount of less than $5 million still wouldn’t be factoring in merch and marketing costs.
The official numbers to re-animate Sonic for the movie was 35 Millon. The movies budget went from 90 to 125 Million
I hope people go out and see this, a studio dumped 35 Million extra in to change something for us, this needs to succeed or what is our feedback really worth? pic.twitter.com/oJUQ9kLmrJ
— TRAFON (@RiseFallNick) November 18, 2019
Another update to this! If Indiewire’s source close to the VFX team is legit, the model thanks to being in early development cost “Less than five million” to redesign for Sonic
Still doesn’t factor in merch, ads, date changing and marketing costs thoughhttps://t.co/xnOWvUsgl3
— TRAFON (@RiseFallNick) November 19, 2019
Another point of speculation when the redesign was first announced questioned how much of the movie may have been completed already before Paramount decided to delay it to work more on Sonic. IndieWire’s source claimed that the only visual effects for Sonic that were completed were the ones seen in the first trailer which would’ve significantly reduced the cost of the redesign since Sonic’s parts weren’t done yet.
For those who thought or still may think that this version of Sonic existed prior to the redesign being announced and was rejected for some reason, Tyson Hesse of Sonic Mania Adventures fame said this wasn’t the case. The artist and animator who was brought on to lead the redesign for Sonic said the new look was “built from the ground up.”
Sonic the Hedgehog will release in theaters on February 14, 2020.
