Sonic the Hedgehog Cinematic Universe Thread (& Knuckles)

This is really troublesome to me as I didn't think Pokemon was popular. At least not since the late '90s. I only know one Pokemon fan and they are in the Netherlands. Good to know. Damn.

 

Wow, really? Haha, yeah, Pokemon has consistently been one of the most successful series ever since the 90s. It's pretty much always on the charts. As franchises go, only Mario and Call of Duty have sold more games. In 2021, Pokémon Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl was the 2nd best selling game in Japan and 4th best in America (dunno about worldwide). Including sales of related non-gaming merchandise/media, it's the highest-grossing media franchise of all time, ahead of Mickey Mouse, Star Wars, even Mario...
Of course, as I said, I've never played one myself. But that's mostly due to my age. The first Pokemon game came out when I was in college, which is way too old for your first exposure to that series, I think.

 

Not that I think Sonic would have overtaken Pikachu, but the original Sonic's Japanese release also happened at the height of the pandemic/lockdown, it didn't hit theatres until June 2020. Any comparison between Sonic and Detective Pikachu requires that caveat, even the US box office run probably lost 10-15 million or so from its tail end being cut short by the pandemic.

On the subject of box office gross though, Sonic 2's opening weekend is currently estimated at $71 million. CNN is saying it's the highest opening ever for a video game adaptation, and not only does that beat the first Sonic's opening ($58m) handily, but it even just barely edges out Sonic 1's four-day weekend gross ($70m when it opened during President's Day weekend). It's also the highest domestic opening for a Jim Carrey movie, beating Bruce Almighty's $68m opening from 2003 (admittedly, inflation would greatly help Bruce Almighty here, but still). Pretty impressive, all things considered, and definitely a sign that Sonic 3 is a slam dunk (I know it's already been announced, but nothing would have stopped them from pulling the plug if 2 tanked).

A friend of mine pointed out to me how the Sonic movies are, in a very weird way, convenient markers for how the pandemic has affected the film industry, so even setting my nerdiness about Sonic aside, I'm just glad people are ready to go back to the movies again.

And yeah, to the Pokemon talk - Pokemon is insanely popular, with a market that doesn't necessarily always reach your stereotypical enthusiast "gamer" market (which has aged overtime anyway), so I think its popularity often goes unnoticed and people think it's just a fad that pops up every now and again. Sword and Shield are the bestselling games in the series since the original Red and Blue, having sold just under 24 million copies as of the end of 2021. They're only behind Mario Kart 8, Animal Crossing, Smash Ultimate and Breath of the Wild for best-selling Switch software.

 

I am just out of touch with all that then.

 

I know the OP has already answered you, but, from my perspective, it's the same barrier the first MCU movies broke for comic adaptations in that not only the movies may be successful or get sequels themselves, but also provoke a trend of high-quality videogame adaptations since this ones have shown there's a way to make them work for general audiences and appeal the public by their own right and not only the fame of the franchise they come from. This would be especially spot-on with a game series that performs so irregularly yet got such a huge praise in this format.

And I also want another Pokémon movie in line with Detective Pikachu. Well, the first part of that movie; everything was perfect to my tastes until they went to the Torterra lands, which was the worst part of the film and was also followed by generic superhero movie action. The first part was excellent fleshing of the Pokémon world in live action with CGI and it delivered what I wanted from it: a family-friendly version of Deadpool.

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Edit to avoid double post:

As much as Sonic 1 is "animal slavery", in lack of a better expression. The general feel is "Bully mistreats poor little friendly beings; how mean of you, bad bad old man.".

 

probably bad wording on my part, metrics show that people liked it, but they didn't actually care for more, to the point that it was cancelled and no one batted an eye

it's not Covid related, but some "disagreements" iirc that sent the sequel development to a limbo, i bet it's some higher up Nintendo decision, and probably some dumb reasoning too

 

I wouldn't mind another Pokémon live action movie. It's just that Detective Pikachu's ending feels really definite, so I can see how disagreements on how to continue it sunked the possibility of a sequel.

 

Regarding Covid's impact...
Sonic 1 released in Japan on June 26, 2020. At that time, Japan's Covid numbers were increasing slightly, it's true...in the month following its release, Japan went from 80-500 new cases per day to 150-900 cases per day by the end of July (keep in mind that during this entire time, there were no more than 2 Covid related deaths per day.)

A bit later, The Kimetsu no Yaiba animated film was released on October 16, 2020. During the month following its release, there were between 500-1500 new daily cases, and 2-12 deaths per day.

Kimetsu no Yaiba became the #1 highest grossing movie of all time in Japan.

So I think the biggest factor was that Pikachu is a ubiquitous pop culture demigod here, but your average Japanese child (Sonic's primary audience) has never heard of Sonic.

 

Just got back from seeing it. It was good! It improves on some things from the first one and was definitely a worthy sequel. Will save spoiler-y thoughts for the spoiler topic.

 

A Sonic movie is never going to move mountains in Japan no matter what, but I sure do wish they would stop releasing them there a full 6 months after they release everywhere else. By that time any excitement is pretty successfully drained out of the experience. I don't know the reason why this has happened twice in a row, but I can only assume there's a good one...

 

When a movie is highly anticipated and expected to be successful, the release is usually day and date with everyone else. So something like a Frozen or Spider-Man sequel will come out right on time. But when a movie is less of a sure thing, it can often be veerrrrrrry delayed.

First of all, since no one is really anticipating it, the delay doesn't really drain much non-existing excitement. Indeed, the delay is usually an attempt to drum up excitement. There are a couple of ways for this to happen.

1. By the time Sonic 2 is released in Japan, it will have already finished its run in all other countries in the world. This allows Japan to use its worldwide box office success/totals in its marketing campaign for the movie. Japanese moviegoers are very influenced by what is considered to be popular. So if the ad campaign can convince them that the movie performed well in the rest of the world, it will make people interested.
2. By waiting until the movie has finished its promotional tours in rest of the world, they have an easier time booking the stars and filmmakers for appearances in Japan to promote the film, should they decide to really push it.

And the other thing to keep in mind that can be hard for people living elsewhere in the world to completely grasp is just how small the demand for movies is in Japan. Going to the movies has never been as popular a pastime as in most other countries. I live in a city of 400,000 people, and there is ONE movie theater. Prior to that, I lived in a small town of 35,000 people, and the nearest movie theater was almost two hours away (where there were 3 theaters in a city of half a million).

 

I think Detective Pikachu just doesn't have any staying power as a standalone movie. The main appeal was "What if pokemon... LIVED IN REAL LIFE?! OOOH!" even though Pokemon is inherently a fantasy about these creatures and Humans coexisting. It didn't really even have a message, which is something the Pokémon movies that released theatrically had, on top of being more with characters we're familiar with. (even if they were bastardized from their original intent...)

I don't know whether or not Sonic 2 will have that staying power, but i think it'll at least be remembered more often.

 

hehehe, an addition to this is that "What if Pokemon...as rendered by the guy who did those 'realistic Pokemon' arts back in the early 2000s", for an old person like myself who remembers that.

mind you, Detective Pikachu is based off of a more obscure Pokemon spinoff title of the same name btw, and borrowed its plot elements.

 

For comparison, Pokemon is the single highest grossing media franchise. At $110 billion it is three times as valuable as Harry Potter which has 7 books which changed the world, 10 blockbuster movies, and a (2?) Universal studios theme park. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_media_franchises

The fact that a Sonic movie even came close to a Hollywood Pokemon movie is amazing. Pikachu is an iconic powerhouse.

I enjoyed Detective Pikachu, but the most endearing thing about it to me was the realistic pokemon in a real-world setting. The plot, while kinda fun, wasn't the main appeal.

 

I'll put this here as it doesn't have spoilers.

Little things I've noticed or have wondered about for both the movies...which have probably been mentioned here in the past but I am not about to sift through thousands of posts to check (along with some opinions):

-In the original “old design” trailer for the first movie, during the “meow” shot, James Marsden's character seems to say “SFPD” when entering. Either that or I heard it wrong. Possibly part of an older script as that was supposed to be in the fictional Montana town in the movie and not San Francisco yet.

-I am wondering if the globetrotting chase scene at the end of the first movie featuring the sphinx and pyramids of Egypt along with the Great Wall in China is a nod to the old cancelled '90s Sonic Wonders of the World movie. Maaaaybe? It does add up a bit but hard to say for sure unless that gets explicitly mentioned by the filmmakers eventually.

-Could Tom Wachowski be a subtle nod to Tom Kalinske? Not sure. Not sure at all. Jury's still out on that one.

-The Sonic 2 movie, to me, has the ingredients of a great fantasy/adventure film that will be remembered for ages. It features a much more intense performance by Jim Carrey (as opposed to the more goofy iteration in the first movie) and at times reminded me of Margaret Hamilton's intensity from the Wizard of Oz (1939). It feels like he's channeling a similar intensity, but far more comical obviously. The movie also contains huge (very colourful) set pieces. The climax of the movie features something very memorable. The movie takes you to fun locales. There is a huge emphasis on water. The colour green features prominently. To me, it seems these are commonalities among some of the most well-known children's fantasy movies in cinematic history. Even with a bad script (not saying this is a bad script—I like it), a movie can be memorable with the right ingredients.

-Finding a balance between being a children's movie, a movie adults can enjoy, and a movie a large video game fan base can enjoy isn't a small task and this does it better than many (my opinion).

-Meme culture. Both the movies, but especially this one, have meme culture written all over them and that's not bad if it is entertaining. I'm not a huge fan of nonstop pop culture references myself but I believe there is a genuine fan base for that as well.

-Owls. Having owl characters in Sonic is not new; see the OVA.

-The last Jim Carrey line in the movie is oddly fitting if this indeed becomes his last movie (although I think there's a good chance his film career isn't truly over).

 

Ah that makes sense.

 

By merging both, I assume? "Disregard" sounds a bit misleading, to me at least.

 

Hmmm...in that case can I unsubscribe from this thread? The movie doesn't come out until August where I'm at, and I'm currently getting emails everytime someone posts here.

Or, another thing you could do is just close this thread and just move all movie talk to the spoiler thread. I haven't posted there, so I won't get email notifications if the discussion moves over there.