The first official poster for the upcoming Sonic The Hedgehog movie was recently unleashed onto the world, teasing a strangely muscular Sonic obscured by darkness.
Given the level of detail on the blue blur’s fur and limbs, many fans are curious as to how the critters face (which is hidden in the first poster) is going to look, with many fearing an ultra-realistic take over the classic cartoon eyes and mouth.
Now, a “leaked” image has begun to circulate online that gives us a better look at this CG Sonic, apparently from an anonymous source posting on the Sonic 4Chan thread.
This image seems to be a new poster for the film, but I reckon there are few things wrong with it. Check it out for yourself below.
As you can see, a cartoony looking Sonic seems to be kicking it with Tom Wachowski, the small town police officer that the hedgehog will be teaming up with in the movie – a character that’s being played by James Marsden.
The most obvious argument against this poster being legit of course, is that the cop in the poster looks nothing like James Marsden. If anything, it looks like Chris Pratt, who definitely isn’t in this movie.
Others online have pointed out that this poster was likely a proof of concept, made before any casting decisions, and long before any design choices were finalised. You might also notice that the Sonic in the image above isn’t quite as muscular as the one in the official poster, for example.
Interestingly, a cast list for the movie also seems to have appeared online. This image seems to show the studio’s potential choice of actor for both Sonic and Tom.
If this is legitimate, it looks like Chris Pratt was at the top of the list for the role of Tom, which would explain why the cop on the “leaked” poster looks so much like the Guardians of The Galaxy star.
Other choices for Tom apparently included Paul Rudd, Chris Evans, Jake Johnson, and Justin Timberlake, while Tom Holland, Josh Gad, and – thrillingly – Charlie Day look to have been considered for the voice of Sonic.
Check it out below.
In the end of course, Ben Schwartz was signed on to voice the iconic hedgehog, and I’m sure he’ll do a great job. The Sonic movie is coming to cinemas on November 8, 2019.
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Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.