Sonic, a success story

When the first trailer of the film was aired (the film is expected to hit Indian screens on February 28), fans of the original video game even wrote to its producers, protesting its “human teeth”.

Box-office earnings of $57 million in the US (and $107 million worldwide) will increase anybody’s standing in showbiz and the honours in early 2020 go to a furry blue sprinter, a hedgehog. According to Variety, Sonic the Hedgehog has outstripped Detective Pikachu ($54 million) of 2019 for the biggest inaugural showing ever for a video game adaptation. But how it got there is also a story by itself.

This image released by Paramount Pictures shows Sonic, voiced by Ben Schwartz, in a scene from "Sonic the Hedgehog ." (Paramount Pictures/Sega of America via AP) (AP)

When the first trailer of the film was aired (the film is expected to hit Indian screens on February 28), fans of the original video game even wrote to its producers, protesting its “human teeth”. Its appearance was also compared to a gawky teen. The studio listened, redrew its critter, gave it hedgehog-teeth, and the film’s earnings are the result.

The story taps all beloved Hollywood tropes: self-discovery through road trips and boy meets alien to overcome the bad man. The revamped trailer also has him speeding up inside a washing machine. The moral of the story is clearly that speed does not kill! On Sonic’s planet, it was this very quality that people were after so Sonic teleports across space into the US.