Ben Schwartz reflects on ‘Ugly Sonic’ The start of the ‘Sonic’ film franchise

On By Littum

With the upcoming release of Sonic the Hedgehog 3Ben Schwartz – who voices the titular character – looks back on the early days of “Ugly Sonic”.

When the trailer for the franchise’s first film debuted in 2019, fan reaction was immediately negative, criticizing Sonic’s appearance and especially his humanoid teeth. The reaction was so intense that the film team promised to redesign the character and delay the film’s release date by three months.

“Maybe sometimes you need a little nudge to really look in the mirror and hear the fans, to really figure out if you want to adjust. And we did,” Schwartz said The Hollywood Reporter on Sonic 3premieres in Los Angeles on Monday. “How often can you think of a movie that really listens to fans and the studio takes money and time to change it because they think it would make the movie better? I think that rarely ever has happened before, if ever.”

Director Jeff Fowler, who has helmed all three films in the franchise, added: “It was out of the ashes of ‘Ugly Sonic’ that this beautiful trilogy of films, this phoenix, had to rise. It was a necessary sacrifice, but yes , thank you ‘Ugly Sonic’ for the memories.” To promote the new film, Paramount Pictures is even bringing the character back in some form and running a giveaway for one ugly Christmas sweater with “Ugly Sonic”.

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 sees Sonic, Knuckles (voiced by Idris Elba) and Tails (Colleen O’Shaughnessey) reunite against a powerful new adversary, Shadow (Keanu Reeves) – a mysterious villain with powers unlike anything they’ve faced before. Jim Carrey, James Marsden, Adam Pally and Natasha Rothwell also round out the star-studded cast, with Marsden saying of new addition Reeves: “He’s the best. He’s so perfect for this character because he does these kind of brooding, mysterious things so good, but it can’t quite cover the warmth and kindness of his heart, so perfect for the character.”

Schwartz joked that after adding new A-listers to each film, he has his eyes set on Daniel Day-Lewis for the fourth film: “If we don’t get DDL in. 4I don’t know what I’m doing with myself.”

Fowler also weighed in on the future of the beloved video game character, noting, “Sonic has been around for 30 years, there are so many great characters to draw into this movie world. The ones we choose, it’s always because we feel like there’s a real good story and it can take our movie universe in exciting and interesting new directions I think the possibilities are endless and right now I’m just going to enjoy movie three tonight and then maybe we’ll wake up and see where we go there from here.”

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 coming to cinemas on Friday.

Ash Crossan contributed to this report.