Sonic the Hedgehog Cinematic Universe Thread (& Knuckles)

It sounds like "papa" and in Spanish, both the subtitles and the dub have him say "daddy", so I think the translators thought the same

 

It's still a weird decision; it's literally one of Amy's most defining moments and she's never been able to reprise it in any of the adaptations of it.

I'm not saying they SHOULD have added her, but I just found it a very strange decision in the Grand scheme.

 

Remember when people were placing weird bets on the trailer or saying stuff like "if it drops on Tuesday I'll ____".

Wonder how that'll pan out now.

 

I understand it from a writing perspective. They introduced 2 animal characters in Sonic 2, Tails and Knuckles, and the result was not enough time for Tails to properly develop and it made him an awkward Sonic fanboy who's gadgets did more for the plot than he himself did. They probably don't want to make that mistake again. But on the other hand Amy, and more specifically the toys that would come with her inclusion, would probably also get a lot of girls on board (Not to say there isn't already, but it'd help) so I'm 50/50 on it. She could definitely show up in Sonic 4. I'm not exactly in any rush for her.

 

That Tails thing isn't unlike the games nowadays to be fair.

 

I could see it as that maybe having a human child convince Shadow that not all humans are bad and are worth saving would probably work better. Not that there's anything wrong with having Amy do it, since she's a child too. Plus now that I think of it, as far as we know, Maria is the only child that Shadow has interacted with. So I could see them using Jojo to remind him of Maria.

 

I'm beginning to wonder what their plans for a prospective Sonic 4 are. They've done the big famous action story from the series with this one, what's left for then to escalate to? Assuming this thing isn't a piece of garbage (which it totally could be, if I'm honest), the cracks are going to form in any new movieverse material. But still, I've thought of some possibilities. Spoilered for a lot of text.

Spoiler

Sonic Adventure: This strikes as the most obvious choice, given we've had plenty of echidna lore added to the movieverse. The problem is that SA1 has six story campaigns, and while you could easily cut Big and Gamma (with Tails as a hanger on Sonic's journey), what this adds up to would easily feel incomplete. I think you'd have to foist a lot of the thematic and emotional responsibility onto Amy, which would probably feel weird for her first Movie. Chaos as a villain and the visuals of flooded New York seem too good to pass up, though.

Sonic Heroes: Now, obviously lacking eight of the principle characters of that game means they wouldn't adapt it anywhere near as closely as even Movie 3, but if they kept it to just an adventure between the Heroes and Metal Sonic, with Amy and maybe Rouge thrown in there for the fun of it all (though I suppose there is the theoretical possibility of Movie 3 doing Shadow's sacrifice, which means we probably wouldn't get Rouge), you could probably do a character study on Sonic and Metal together. Depending on where they're taking Robotnik in Movie 3 it could also add to his dynamic with the heroes.

Shadow the hedgehog: Also an obvious pick with it's Alien Invasion theme, and I suspect Gerald is the true villain of Movie 3, so there won't be any Doom in there. The main issue is causality, as movie 3 will probably try to give Shadow a complete arc within one story, and if he doesn't fake die at the end, I don't know what would motivate him into action against the black arms (maybe it's hard to know without seeing where 3 takes his character in the first place). This however is no place to introduce Amy if they have any plans to do that at all, though Rouge would probably work, especially if Shadow and GUN are still pitted against each other in any way.

Sonic 06: Definitely a long shot due to it being infamous, convoluted and bullshit, but I've heard people say for years that if the love story between Sonic and Elise were between Sonic and an existing female character, it would have worked a lot better. So maybe Amy is the princess of Soleanna? It's a pretty isolated nation, that could have been an open secret or something. Have her start out kind of reserved and passive early on but eventually come out of her shell and become the crazy bitch we know and (sometimes) love from the games as she grows closer and more confident with Sonic? Yeah, I could get with it. It would solve the problem of Elise being a boring and mostly static character, and I think movie Sonic is the version I would least mind seeing settle down with a girl. I feel like this angle is the strongest for it being "the Amy movie" insofar as 2 was "the Knuckles movie" and 3 is "the Shadow movie". The nice thing about Sonic's story is that it's so bland and repetitive that you could basically insert whatever setpieces you feel like and it wouldn't compete for space with anything else from the game. You'd have to basically scrap Shadow's story and especially Silver's though. I don't think Silver's story is good on its own and certainly would be too much for the movieverse. Perhaps an alternate future Tails could replace him? Get our own movieverse version of Nine? Or maybe Metal Sonic was designed as a protector by future-Robotnik and is sent back as an actual terminator.

Sonic Unleashed: Well this along with Colors probably already feels the most like a Sonic movie to begin with, but the problem is we're starting to succumb to scope creep. With SA1, Shadow and 06, you at least have cataclysmic events. A flooded city, an alien war and time collapsing. With these two however, the planet splitting isn't actually a significant factor in Unleashed, just a signifier of progression, while the tone is really the most relaxed of almost any Sonic game. The fight with Dark Gaia at the center of the Earth is significant, but what is the rest of the movie? Bumming around? Sonic and Chip's dynamic doesn't hold an entire film on its own (as an Unleashed skeptic, I'd argue it doesn't even hold Unleashed), and Eggman barely feels like he has stuff to do in that game to begin with.

Sonic Colors: Same difference, really. The game was crafted to be a focused, smaller return to form for Sonic, and a Movie following that lead will struggle to feel like an escalation from Movie 3. Terminal Velocity is a great climax, but you'd be banking on the wisps being an acceptable thing for the heroes to be saving, and that's even less compelling than Chip. I suppose if you were combining stories, this would be the place to do stuff with Amy and Metal Sonic. Eggman claiming to be reformed could also fit well as a followup to Movie 3, but there's no space here for a big Super Sonic climax, unless we really think Mother Wisp would get asses in seats.

Overall, you can feel things get weaker as it goes, at least without doing anything outlandish and original. The movies are starting to run into the problem the games did, with not being able to let go of characters for stories they don't have much place in. We're already seeing how Tails and Knuckles don't feel like they're going to be a big part of Movie 3, and it's only going to get worse in situations like this where they've run out of stories with significant roles in the source material. This is all assuming 3 isn't the last movie, which it very well might be.

 

I think I could see it going backwards and instead almost doing Sonic CD. Have Little Planet show up next to Earth, have Sonic and pals go to it, meet Amy, have Robotnik make Metal Sonic out of the quill Sonic handed to him in 3. Robotnik's motivation is that if he can't take over Earth then he'll take over Little Planet. By the end of the movie you can have all the animal characters stay on Little Planet and take Robotnik with them so they can cut out Tom and Maddie and get even more in line with the game canon, or even serve it as an end to the series and close on all the alien critters going back into space to have adventures forever.

 

In fact, in the Brazillian dub, Eggman really calls Gerald grandpa.

 

Depending on this movie, I think it'd be a little hard to go from Sonic Adventure 2 to CD.

The former already feels like a climactic season finale for the franchise whereas CD is just another game. Amy herself isn't even a major character in it as she's just a damsel to rescue.

 

I think saving the timeline could be a reasonable escalation beyond saving the planet.

 

Toy Story also had a jump to the billion dollar club. Toy Story 2's worldwide grosses were $487m* to Toy Story 3's $1.06b
*not including re-releases

The road to a billion for Sonic 3 is going to be knee-capped by Mufasa being the market place at the same time. I said before that there is room in the market place for both Mufasa and Sonic 3 to exist and do well at the same time, but there can only be one #1 here and I don't think it's going to be Sonic. Mass audiences are just dumb and give Disney money for almost all of their live action remake schlock and Mufasa is just another one of those easy guaranteed $500m+ earner for them and those are seats and ticket sales that are taken by Disney instead of going to Sonic. If Paramount really wants Sonic 3 to hit that billion milestone, they would have to delay Sonic 3 by several months. January is a dead month. February has Cap, March has Snow White, April has Passion of the Christ 2, Minecraft and Michael and it just gets worse from there.

What stinks is that Mufasa only moved to to the December release date because of the strikes. Sonic 3's production seemed to have not been affected by it too much thanks to how smart they were about filming their CG heavy scenes first during the strikes and everything else after that was resolved. They were able to maintain their release date and I never heard any fears about pushing it. Obviously I don't have knowledge about the actual production woes, but the usual rags and snitches would have mentioned something. The biggest thing we got was the rumor mill around Keanu. The production team on these movies have been doing phenomonal work 3 times in a row now, these guys know how to make a movie under a ton of pressure.

 

Yeah, I think people are still under the impression these are straight adaptations from the games when they are just taking inspirations from them.

A CD adaptation doesn't necessarily need Little Planet, the Time Stones, the zones from the game etc etc.

It could be Robotnik finding himself on another planet where he discovers something that allows him to travel back in the past and undoing the events of the first movie that results in an alternative timeline.

They could even add Silver and Amy to the mix without having to worry about Iblis/Soleanna/Mephiles and not having Amy getting kidnapped.

 

We could get both Sonic CD and Sonic Heroes elements for adaptation at the same time.

Just saying, Sonic 2 (the movie) made a mix between Sonic 2 and 3 material (the games).

 

Sonic 4 the film should adapt Sonic 4, the game

shit textures on everything, Sonic can stand on walls...

 

Are people really comparing The Dark Knight and Toy Story 3, widely believed to be two of the greatest movies of all time, to Sonic movie 3 and saying it has the same quality and potential for a billion dollars? Even though Batman and Toy Story are 2 of the biggest film franchises ever and had to pull together decades of good will and love towards their franchise to hit a billion?

The Sonic movies are primarily aimed at a child audience and are written as such. We might love the franchise but unless you already enjoy Sonic or you're a family, there's no reason to watch this over and over again. Pixar makes movies that children can enjoy but adults can too because they take themselves seriously. Sonic movie 3s trailer has a gag about Eggman wiping his butt.

Movies hitting a billion has ALWAYS been an exception not the norm and it has never been easy. The movie making more than the first two (which it probably will) will be a huge win. 600 million for a movie like this will be incredible and we should never forget most movies never come CLOSE to making that much money.

 

It was another example. Relax pal.

 

Wasn't trying to tear you down, was just giving the different circumstances those two movies had this occur with than Sonic has.

Every movie in the billion dollar club has different circumstances, even the ones people consider to be mediocre movies, and I just don't see how Sonic 3 will he able to do so. Even if it had zero competition.

Basically everything in the billion dollar club is either an extraordinary movie (Dark Knight Films, Top Gun Maverick) or benefited from their franchise having decades of goodwill.

The animated Mario movie is considered by many to just be alright but the Mario franchise has been beloved by 40 years and multiple generations so it just had be decent to hit a billion.

Captain Marvel made a billion because it came out 2 months before Avengers Endgame and was positioned as a "much watch" for its story. The sequel which had no hook like that, and had come out after the MCU hit a period of consistent mediocrity, barely crossed 200 million. And I'd argue The Marvels is a better movie than the first one.

Movies that release in December tend to always do pretty well but the only time I can think of a franchise having a billion dollar film, when no one expected it, was Aquaman 2018. Which came out at the peak of the superhero craze in the world and had Jason Mamoa who women were going CRAZY for (aquaman is one of the only dceu movies to have more women see it in its first weekend than men) at the time.

There's dozens of reasons for this movie to be widely successful, but unless there's a huge jump in quality from chili dog fart jokes and "RANDALL!" wedding sub plot, a billion dollars just isn't on the table.

Please quote me if I'm wrong and the movie makes a billion dollars too. I'd love to be wrong. I'm just going off of historical context when saying all this.

 

My guess is the economics don't favor a Sonic 4 happening, given the Skydance acquisition there will likely be a continued focus on cost cutting in the near future. That being said, maybe 3 turns out to be a giant success and outgrosses 2 and so a 4 does get greenlit. What does that look like?

• You can bet it will tie around the introduction of at least 1 new character to market the film around - my guess is Amy, Rouge (both?), maybe Metal Sonic.
• I would expect Team Sonic and Shadow
• Jim Carrey? Probably a cameo at best - I have no idea how the deals for the films were structured, but it didn't sound like there were any multi-film deals for the cast given the speculation on Jim Carrey's involvement with 3 and the belated public announcement he was signed on as well as his public overtures about retirement.
• Would the rest of the human cast be worth it to the studio? wouldn't be surprised to see reports of at least 1 or 2 of the main human cast leaving or reduced to cameos

Given the above, my guess is they come up with a plot that displaces the main cast from the real world and are split up, they have to find each other and then use the power of teamwork to find a way back.

Also, my personal fan theory is that Stone will somehow become a badnik, so hopefully they pay that off. I fully expected Master Emerald Robotnik to roboticize him with god powers in Sonic 2.