The following contains mild spoilers for Sonic the Hedgehog 3, in theaters now.
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 marks the end of a trilogy that didn’t seem possible when the first film was released in 2020. Sonic 1 introduced the character of Sonic to a whole new generation of fans, and laid the groundwork for amazing arcs surrounding Dr. Robotnik, Tails and even new characters. With Sonic 3 smashing box office numbers and Sonic 4 announced, it’s well worth looking to the past to see how it all began.
In Part 2 of their interview with CBR, Sonic franchise writers Josh Miller and Patrick Casey about developing the first film and the challenges they encountered along the way.. The duo also discussed changing the look and origin of Dr. Robotnik. Find out how comedy icon Jim Carrey influenced the character’s direction.
CBR: Sonic the Hedgehog is a beloved franchise in the video game space. What were your first experiences with Sonic, before making the movies?
Josh Miller: I guess it ages us, but it was just Sonic the Hedgehog 1 on the Genesis.
Patrick Casey: My dad bought me and my siblings a Genesis one day really out of nowhere, and Sonic came with it, and we played that game a ton. And then when Sonic 2 came out, then that was REALLY the one.
Miller: You could play two players on that.
Casey: So we’ve been with Sonic since the very beginning.
What was the transition like for you when the Sonic video games moved from the 2D to the 3D space? Was that as different for you as it was for other fans?
Miller: I feel like if you start out with the 2D games, the 3D games feel really weird. I remember when the Dreamcast came out and just being like, “Ahh!” [Laughs.]
Casey: I actually played Sonic Adventure before the Dreamcast even came out in the U.S. I knew a kid from Japan and he got a Japanese Dreamcast. I played Sonic Adventure 1 in Japanese, and I had no idea what was happening. Then when I played it again in English, I didn’t really have that much more of an idea of what was happening. [Laughs.]
So then you get drafted to write a Sonic the Hedgehog movie. Why was the choice made to have Sonic on Earth at the start of the story, rather than see him on his home planet?
Miller: That came down from the American studio. That was the weird thing we were all handed — us and [director] Jeff [Fowler] and the producers. The studio wanted it to be on Earth, because they just thought people wouldn’t want to see it if it was set on some weird fantasy planet. But Sega was like, “Well, Sonic’s not from Earth, though.” We were kind of like, “All right, I guess we can solve that problem.”
Casey: Early in the process, we actually had more [scenes] on Sonic’s home planet, and then he comes to Earth. But we quickly realized that if we were going to spend a lot of time there, it would feel like you have to go back in Act 3, or it would feel like the movie’s starting over when he gets to Earth.
We ultimately realized we should get him to Earth as early as possible, especially as we were developing the story and realizing the strongest emotional connection we were feeling was Sonic to this town and to Tom… Because he had this strong connection there ,that’s where we wanted to go back to in Act 3.
Since it had to be mostly on Earth, we might as well make it basically all on Earth to try and make what we had as strong as possible.
Miller: We all had to bust our heads together to find what felt like a creative and emotional reason to set it on Earth, because we had to.
With that in mind, would you ever want to spend time in Sonic 4 or a future movie taking Sonic back to his home planet, and seeing Green Hill proper?
Casey: We almost put a sequence like that into Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and then ended up not having space for it. But we definitely know that there are other worlds and these more fantastical zones, and we would like to see it, so we assume the audience would like to see it as well.
For Sonic the Hedgehog 3, the story was all about all this military stuff and it was inherently Earthbound. But possibly in the future, we might get out into some more fantastic places.
It was a bold choice to introduce Dr. Robotnik looking anything but game-accurate. Yet Sonic 1 pulled the character off beautifully. What scared you most about introducing an alternate version of Robotnik, at least in look, to the big screen?
Miller: I guess it [was] just the idea that fans [would] be annoyed. I can imagine being out of the bubble and being a fan and just being like, “But why?” You couldn’t get a heavyset guy and shave his head. I know a lot of fan castings, it was like Danny DeVito or people like that. It was weird, because fans were so upset by the “Ugly Sonic” design that by the time they fixed that and the movie was coming out, I didn’t even feel like people complained that much about Robotnik’s look.
Casey: When we were writing that first movie, we didn’t know who was going to play Robotnik, but we knew we wanted somebody funny. And then when the word came down that Jim Carrey wanted to do it, we were amazed and delighted. But that also meant that Robotnik was going to be a thin guy, because Jim Carrey was thin. [He] could have worn a fat suit at the beginning. Again, that’s above our pay grade. But we were excited to see Jim do it. And I think he had some input on what his look would be as well.
Miller: I also kind of feel like Jim always thought it would be funny to be in a fat suit.
Casey: I think the producers actually talked him out of the fat suit thing just because they didn’t want to have to deal with it. [Laughs.] Just Jim getting in and out of it everyday.
Sonic the Hedgehog is streaming on Paramount+. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is in theaters now.
