Well now… Everyone knows that E3 is always the time for new video game related announcements to take place. But even so, I have to say, I did not see this one coming: Sony and SEGA have announced a partnership to bring Sonic the Hedgehog to the big screen. In a CG/live-action hybrid. And apparently they want to release one such film a year. Hm.

The film will “follow the antics of Sonic, the world’s fastest hedgehog. The film will also feature some of the franchise’s favorite characters including the evil Dr. Eggman.” It will be produced by Neal Moritz (Fast & Furious franchise, I Am Legend), and the CG aspects will be handled by Japanese company Marza Animation Planet. Little else has been revealed about the new franchise, but you can check out some quotes and thoughts about it below.

“There are limitless stories to tell with a character like Sonic the Hedgehog and a built-in international fan base. Along with our wonderful creative partners at Marza, we’re looking to capture everything that generations of fans know and love about Sonic while also growing his audience wider than ever before.” — Hannah Minghella, Columbia Pictures President of Production

“Sonic has had dozens of adventures on the console and the small screen, and we’re thrilled that he’s now coming to the big screen. Sony Pictures has had great success with hybrid animated and live-action features, and we’re confident that this collaboration will bring a fresh take to Sonic, while still capturing everything that the fans love about him.” — Masanao Maeda, Marza CEO

As much as I usually try to hold out hope for Sonic to do well and turn public opinion on him around, I imagine I’m not alone in my fears for this endeavor. Gaming movies have historically fared rather poorly at the box office, and Sonic and his adventures just do not strike me as the kind of game that can turn that around. I may be wrong, but I just can’t bring myself to expect much from this.

Nevertheless… if they’re serious about doing this, then I’m going to hope they do it well—after all, there are plenty of gaming series out there that I’d love to see get the movie treatment, but won’t because their companies don’t think gaming movies can work. If Sonic can succeed, its victory could be the first step to those games making the same transition. So if the fan petitions fail and this movie franchise gets made, we should all cross our fingers for it to turn out solid.

Classic case of “expect the worst, hope for the best.”

Source: NeoGAF

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Tyler Meehan
Tyler is verbose. He apologizes for that. Tyler "Alpha" Meehan's first experiences with gaming came from his cousins' NES and the Mario games that went with it. They were fun, but merely brief distractions while on the road (yes, they had an NES in their car. It was awesome, and he was jealous). Still, nothing compared to his Star Wars books. OR SO HE THOUGHT. His love of gaming truly began when he and a friend came together to beat the Nintendo 64's Mission: Impossible, a challenge so intense that Tyler bought his own console to facilitate its defeat. Upon being introduced to Ocarina of Time (an introduction that included, among other spoilers, the freakin' final boss fight. GEEZ, PHILIP), his lot in life as a Nintendo fanboy was sealed in stone. His ability to recall absolutely useless video game information served him well during the Pokémon craze, and helped him aid numerous friends in their own endeavors to defeat games like Majora's Mask and Kingdom Hearts. Those were good days. Good days... The Zelda series soon became his primary obsession fascination, but additionally he was soon introduced to text-based RPGs by one of his schoolmates. Discovering that he had a knack for the English language and a strong love of telling stories, he started putting effort into writing his own storylines. That all got put onto the backburner, though, when he discovered the Zelda online community, particularly The Desert Colossus's Hyrule Adventures 2, an online text RPG based in the Zelda world. He joined under the pseudonym of "Alpha" and soon became one of their lead writers, going so far as to join the moderator staff and, in a year's time, become the head administrator of the RPG. During this time, Twilight Princess was released, and he joined several other TDCers in posting their thoughts on the game - his "Twilight Impression Posts" lasted for several months and were well received by the community. Staying on even after the webmaster was forced to retire, he continued to provide occasional news posts and articles for the site, until it became clear that the site was dying. He turned his focus back to Hyrule Adventures 2 and his college studies, until the latter forced him to stop work on the former. Tyler graduated a few years ago from the Georgia Institute of Technology with a Bachelors in Computer Science, and now serves as a software engineer for a rather large company that he doesn't feel like telling you all about (he's a jerk like that sometimes). His love of gaming and writing still strong, he joined the Zelda Informer staff in early 2013 to write a walkthrough for The Wind Waker, but later began using his English skills to become ZI and Gamnesia's first dedicated Copy Editor. When not trying to get Brian to shut up in Gamnesia's group chat, he spends his time writing Zelda fanfiction, planning some original fantasy stories that he may or may not try to publish some day, and playing games on his Wii, PlayStation 3, and Nintendo 3DS. He intends to get a WiiU sooner or later, probably around when Pikmin 3 comes out, but has little interest in the other consoles currently. Also, he can't stand writing bios in first-person. Talking about yourself like that is just...weird.

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