We Almost Got a Very Different Sonic the Hedgehog Movie

When Sonic the Hedgehog sped into theaters in February 2020, no one could have predicted that it would be a major box office success – or that it would kickstart a new wave of video game adaptations, with most of them enjoying similar success. But it’s not the first time someone has tried to bring the Blue Blur to the silver screen. In 1992, when Sonic was at the height of his popularity, Sega teamed with MGM Studios to develop a Sonic film that would tie into an upcoming game. But the failure of other video game adaptations, combined with a decrease in popularity for Sonic, meant that this proposed movie wouldn’t see the light of day. But the question remains: what exactly would a Sonic the Hedgehog movie have been like in 1993?

The ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ Movie Tied Into a Video Game & Brought Sonic to Life (Literally)

Sega of America’s then-director of entertainment and consumer products, Michealene Risley, floated the idea of a Sonic movie after overseeing a deal for two Sonic the Hedgehog animated series. “I was basically driving the Sonic movie. I don’t know who came up with the idea…but having come from the movie world, I was always pushing those things. And when we got the go-ahead from Japan to push forward with the movie, it was a very small group of us working on it,” she told Kotaku when discussing the genesis of the original Sonic movie pitch. Risley reached out to Edward Pressman, who had served as a producer on The Crow and the live-action Street Fighter movie.

Screenwriter Richard Jeffries drew up a treatment called Sonic the Hedgehog: Wonders of the World that centered on a kid named Josh who was struggling with the twin pitfalls of adolescence and joint parenting. When Josh’s father, who’s also a brilliant scientist, picks him up from school, Josh decides to use an experimental computer to help him with his schoolwork – plugging in a Sonic the Hedgehog game to demonstrate. This winds up bringing Sonic into the real world, where he befriends Josh. But trouble isn’t too far behind, since Sonic’s nemesis Dr. Robotnik is also out in the real world and seeks the power of the Chaos Emeralds. In a major twist, Sonic would have been fully 3D CGI – a rarity back in the ’90s.

Multiple Factors Led to the ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ Movie Being Shelved

Sonic the Hedgehog: Wonders of the World was also meant to tie in with the release of the Sega Saturn game console, and there was even a Sonic game in the works for said console called Sonic X-Treme. Jeffries wrote his treatment around Sonic X-Treme‘s story, even talking with lead Sonic programmer Yuji Naka. But things went south when Sonic X-Treme was canceled; the Saturn itself would suffer due to an early launch and buggy software, ultimately being succeeded by the Dreamcast (which had a much more successful run and a Sonic game of its own in Sonic Adventure). Jefferies offered his own take on the matter:

“My feeling at the time – and I could be wrong about this – but the reason movies fall apart between Hollywood and the game world is because each party feels like they should have 75% of the deal. Just on financial terms. But it could be, at Sega, that the focus groups weren’t responding to the evolution of the character, and the heyday of the character was behind them. Maybe they were hoping a movie could help reinvigorate that. But maybe it was a response to where Sonic was headed, and maybe MGM came to that conclusion themselves. I don’t know.”

It also didn’t help that video game movies at the time weren’t exactly critical darlings or box office blowouts. Super Mario Bros and Street Fighter both debuted to lackluster reviews, so perhaps Sega and MGM feared Wonders of the World would suffer the same fate. Sonic would eventually get to the silver screen in 2020, courtesy of Jeff Fowler and Paramount.

The ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ Movies Keep This Element From the Scrapped Pitch

Fowler’s Sonic films incorporate plenty of lore from the video games, including the highly anticipated Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (which will finally bring Shadow the Hedgehog into live action). But it also shares a key element with Wonders of the World, namely the fact that Sonic has a human companion. In the first Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic travels to Earth as a child and grows up in the town of Green Hills. When Dr. Robotnik (Jim Carrey) starts hunting him, Sonic finds an unlikely ally in Green Hills’ sheriff, Tom Wachowski (James Marsden) and his wife Maddie (Tika Sumpter). This also continues in the spinoff series Knuckles, where Idris Elba‘s titular Echidna teaches Tom’s deputy sheriff Wade Whipple (Adam Pally) how to be a great warrior. Granted, adults interacting with a speedy blue hedgehog is different from a kid interacting with a speedy blue hedgehog, but it works far better than expected and shows that Wonders of the World might have had a chance if it ever made it to theaters.

Sonic the Hedgehog will be available to stream on Netflix on September 1, 2024.

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