According to a new report, the Sonic the Hedgehog movie redesign took more work and resources than you may think. Further, apparently it was Paramount Pictures who pushed for the more realistic, original design, despite knowing it would be controversial at first. Word comes way of website Sonic Team Argentina, who reportedly and recently interviewed Max Schneider, an animator involved with the movie. According to the animator, the process of the redesign was a five month process, and began with work on the character’s face, and finished with his shoes. That said, Schneider claims there was no crunch or pressure on animators to work more than normal, and rather the team was given the time and sense of peace it needed. However, despite taking a lot of time, the animator says it wasn’t very expensive, which is perhaps why Paramount was okay giving the team the time it needed.
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The animator notes that it was Paramount that pushed for the first design, which it was confident in. While it knew it would be controversial, it thought it would be generally accepted, and that it was a good fit for the live-action elements of the movie. Again, Paramount knew there would be backlash, but it didn’t anticipate the backlash being big enough to warrant making any changes.
“To modify everything took many months, since a big part of the movie was already finished,” said Schneider. “And the process was basically to redesign the model, make a new rig and going back to animate everything with the character. Some things were rescued from the old animations, but others had to practically be animated again”, Max told us.
Of course, all of this should be taken with a grain of salt, and not just because the source is a smaller fan site, but because the interview had to go through translation, and, as you may know, when things go through translation it can skew things in a way that leads to incorrect information.
Sonic the Hedgehog is set to release on February 14, 2020. For more news, media, and information on the upcoming movie, click here.
