Sonic the Hedgehog director Jeff Fowler has opened up about the much-talked about redesign of Sonic in the live-action movie.

The first design of Sonic was met with such a backlash that the movie was delayed, before the redesign for the speedy hedgehog – unveiled in November – was greeted much more positively.

Talking to Digital Spy, Fowler revealed that he was pretty confident fans would like it, but it was still a nerve-wracking time.

Paramount

"I think it had been about five months that had passed since the first trailer. We had worked very hard on our updates to the character. It was definitely a little bit of like, 'Oh man, what happens if they don't like this?'" he recalled.



"But really, everyone that saw it internally as I was working on the film, just responded so positively. It really felt like, once we shared it with the fans, they would really embrace it and be excited about it.

"Fortunately, any anxiety I had the night before passed really quickly once it was released. Because, yeah, it was such an incredible feeling to see Sonic 2.0 get embraced the way it was."

Paramount

As a fan of the character himself, Fowler was keen to do justice to Sonic's live-action debut and he felt like the "attitude and fun" of the character "would work so well" for the big screen.

The games themselves don't have too much of a plot, so it was a case of finding the best way to make him work in a movie, creating the arc that Sonic was the "outsider".

"As great as it is for him to have his powers, it just felt really interesting to then have the other side of that where his powers are also what are forcing him to live in this very isolated way, outside of this small town of Green Hill," Fowler explained.



"And for that to actually create a little bit of a challenge for him to overcome emotionally. That just felt like a really great place to start."

Sonic the Hedgehog is out in cinemas on February 14.

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