Actor Jim Carrey, who plays the villain, Doctor Robotnik, has spoken up for the first time about the backlash surrounding his forthcoming movie.
After the first trailer for the Paramount adaptation of Sonic the Hedgehog was released earlier this year, which features the popular Sega video game character Sonic, voiced by Ben Schwartz, it received severe backlash. Fans took to social media to criticize the titular character’s design.
They mocked the design of the title character and pointed out the difference in appearance between the animated character and the live-action Sonic, which has human teeth and enlarged calf muscles.
All this hue and cry led Paramount to delay its release until February 14, 2020, even though the director, Jeff Fowler, soon after the backlash confirmed via a tweet that a redesign was in the works.
“Thank you for the support. And the criticism. The message is loud and clear,” Fowler wrote on Twitter. “You aren’t happy with the design and you want changes. It’s going to happen. Everyone at Paramount and Sega are fully committed to making this character the best he can be,” he added.
In another tweet, Fowler wrote, “Taking a little more time to make Sonic just right.” Apart from this, producer Tim Miller also said that he thinks “fans will be pleased” after the beloved character is redesigned.
However, the cast members had not spoken up until now. Recently, actor Jim Carrey, who plays Doctor Robotnik in the upcoming live-action movie, finally responded to the backlash surrounding his forthcoming movie, Sonic the Hedgehog.
“Sometimes you find that the collective consciousness decides it wants something and then when it gets it, it goes, ‘OK, I don’t want it’,” Jim Carrey said at the Television Critics Association (TCA) panel for his Showtime series, Kidding.
Carrey said that he isn’t very concerned about the backlash and subsequent release push-back. “It’s going to happen how it happens. It’s either going to be a good thing or a bad thing.” However, he questioned the notion of the audience being able to weigh in (and force change) while a project is still in production. He also acknowledged that fans have “the sense of ownership” of the character because it is from their childhood.
“Sometimes, you find the collective consciousness finds it wants something and then when it gets it: ‘I just wanted it, I didn’t care about it. I just jumped on the bandwagon’. Ownership of anything is going out the window for all of us,“ he said.
“Carrey also addressed the concerning Deepfake technology, which allows for existing content to be superimposed with other images or audio. Government officials have serious concerns about the technology being used as another form of misinformation. One of the most famous instances involves a superimposed Carrey over Jack Nicholson in The Shining. The result was so well done that it was shocking,” reported The Hollywood Reporter.
Speaking of Deepfakes, Carrey stated, “What’s next? Who knows. Just like everything else in our world, we’re feeling out of control with the process.”
The movie which was slated to release in November 2019 has been moved to February 2020 for the animators to “fix” the look of the Sonic character.
– With information from The Hollywood Reporter and Variety
