Weekly Round Up: Sonic, Angelina Jolie, Fantastic Beasts

6th May 2019

Should we talk about Sonic the Hedgehog? Should we? I don’t know. I feel like there are other movies out there we could be talking about… and yet, screw it. Let’s talk about Sonic the Hedgehog.

Okay, so, the Sonic the Hedgehog trailer dropped last week and, in case you’ve been living in a hole somewhere underground for the last seven days, it was not well received. In fact, it was worse than that. It was so poorly received it makes the Super Mario Bros. movie look cool by comparison (side note: I actually love the Super Mario Bros. movie; Bob Hoskins is great, and Dennis Hopper gives it his all and what’s not to love about that? In fact, I think I’ll cover it on my podcast, because that was da bob-omb when I was a kid!)

Anyway, Sonic the Hedgehog is a beloved video game character and he has appeared in countless games for many different platforms over the years. Somehow, despite varying in quality and interest, not a single one of these games has managed to mess up Sonic’s iconic “look”, which… bizarrely, is something that can’t be said about the film.

In the same week that Detective Pikachu hit theatres – a movie that features literally dozens of video game characters realised almost perfectly in 3D computer animation – the fact that Sonic looks so uncomfortably un-Sonic in his own movie only adds insult to the injury.

But then, there’s an even stranger side to all of this, one that could be seen as a happy ending, unless you’re a cynic like me and you just like making everything seem like crap.

Jeff Fowler, the director of the Sonic the Hedgehog movie , took to Twitter to respond to the fan backlash against the titular character’s look and confirmed that “The message is loud and clear… you aren’t happy with the design & you want changes. It’s going to happen. Everyone at Paramount & Sega are fully committed to making this character the BEST he can be.”

So, it would appear the plan is to change Sonic’s design. Okay, fine. I guess. But I have questions.

Firstly, were everyone not already fully committed? Is this the point where at now, where studios just kick out any old crap and it’s only if and when there’s a backlash to it they decide to try and show more commitment? Because if so, let’s put an end to that right now. But what’s more, I’m not sure how I feel about this kind of behaviour being rewarded. It used to be that the design was the design and that was that. Are we now saying that if people don’t like something about a movie it’s okay for the movie to be changed as a result of that? Did we not learn from Snakes on a Plane whiny people on the internet are just that… they’ll be downloading your movie anyway, Paramount, I wouldn’t worry too much about keeping them on side.

Anyway, moving swiftly along. Another franchise that continuously screws about with its fans, but one that, instead of altering to suit their wants has an over-controlling God like figure at the centre who can just retcon things and change people’s sexuality on a whim, has run into trouble recently.

That’s right, this week Warner Bros. announced that Fantastic Beasts 3, the sequel to possibly the worst movie ever made ever in the history of worst ever movies ever (fight me) has had its release date pushed back from 2020 to 2021. This is likely in response to the underwhelming box-office takings of The Crimes of Grindelwald.

Seriously, at what point are fans of this franchise going to realise that it’s just not very good? J K Rowling just isn’t all that great, and yes, we all love Harry Potter, but a one hit wonder is a one hit wonder, even if the one hit took seven books and eight films to fizzle out.

A Warner Bros. executive released a statement about the change of release date, claiming that they want to “give the filmmakers time and space to allow their artistry to truly flourish and deliver the best possible film to our fans”, which again, much like Sonic, seems to suggest that these studios are only interested in the commitment after they’d messed up. Presumably they’ve fired Rowling and hired someone who can actually write to take over? I mean, that’s the only way you’re going to sort this rubbish out.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Fantastic Beasts should have been James Bond in the Potterverse. New Scamander on whacky adventures, each movie a new story with a new supporting cast and a new animal thing to focus on. Sod all this Grindelwald/Johnny Depp crap.

Let’s have some lighter, happier news to end on. Angelina Jolie was recently cast in Marvel’s The Eternals, and while we’re all pretty curious to see where that goes (after all, Marvel aren’t exactly known for casting big stars of Jolie’s calibre in their movies) that film doesn’t start filming until September, which gives Jolie a window to work on something smaller.

It appears she’s taking up that opportunity to work with Taylor Sheridan, who wrote and directed Wind River, and wrote the screenplays for Sicario and Hell or High Water. The film will be called Those Who Wish Me Dead and is based on the Michael Koryta novel of the same name.

It’s a novel that has been described as “not easily described in a few words”, but reportedly involves Jolie working on a forest fire lookout tower, and a 14-year-old witness to a brutal murder who is in the woods as part of the witness protection programme. I don’t know much more than that, but Taylor has a good track record, so I’m game for this.

Facebook

Google

Twitter

We hope you're enjoying BRWC. You should check us out on our social channels, subscribe to our newsletter, and tell your friends. BRWC is short for battleroyalewithcheese.