Exclusive: Sonic the Hedgehog director teases Easter eggs in the movie
As the backlash to the original design showed, Sonic the Hedgehog was not an easy game to adapt for a live-action movie.
But as much as Sonic himself proved a challenge, it was actually another character that proved tricky to realise: Dr Robotnik.
"With Robotnik, there wasn't quite so much to pull from with the source material, because he is very moustache-twirly, and for the purposes of the film, we were trying to keep him a little bit more grounded," director Jeff Fowler told Digital Spy.
"I mean, we still obviously had a lot of fun with the character. The development that went into him, and all of that, was made so great, just by the casting of Jim Carrey, and all the ideas that he brought to it.
"It just felt like he really responded to the character in the most incredible way, and had so many ideas for how to develop him."
As to be expected, Carrey brought a lot of improvisation to the role and "so many great ideas and pitches".
"Really, it's just so much fun to see what he's cooked up, and to be trying stuff. We were always doing alts, or just coming up with different gags and ways to do the scene. That just gave us a lot of really great options when it came to editing," Fowler added.
And even though Fowler was trying to keep the movie grounded and give Sonic a "satisfying emotional arc", there's still plenty of Easter eggs in the movie for fans to savour.
"We always knew we wanted to have some version of his island and to see the Green Hill Zone – the cinematic version of it – and to really just render that, and to create that visual in a way that would get fans really excited because it's so lush and so beautiful," he noted.
"The rings are certainly another huge component of it. That was something that we knew needed to be a significant element. And then it just came into all the Easter egg stuff, which is always so fun to do.
"It's not like you're going out of your way in terms of the story to put these things in. They are what they are, which is just Easter eggs and things that could be dropped in there along the way. It's just a way of rewarding fans for their years of enthusiasm."
Fowler also spoke to Digital Spy about the well-received redesign of Sonic and the "anxiety" that came with revealing it.
Sonic the Hedgehog is in cinemas on February 14.
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