Sonic the Hedgehog movie lands at Paramount

Sonic the Hedgehog's path to the big screen has taken a detour. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Paramount Pictures picked up the rights to bring Sega's flagship franchise to feature films after the project stalled at Sony Entertainment.

While the studio in charge of the Sonic movie has changed, much of the production team is sticking with the film. That includes Neal H. Moritz, a prolific producer whose credits include the entire Fast and the Furious franchise, the I Know What You Did Last Summer series, and the Martin Lawrence film Blue Streak. It will be executive produced by Deadpool director Tim Miller and Toby Ascher, with Dan Jevons and Dmitri Johnson rounding out the list of producers.

Their other credits aside, the team clearly has an interest in the gaming world. Moritz, Ascher, Jevons, and Johnson are all filling the same roles on an in-development movie based on the Square Enix game Sleeping Dogs. Additionally, Johnson and Jevons have worked on film projects for Little Nightmares, We Happy Few, Life is Strange, and Skulls of the Shogun, while Jevons' MobyGames biography lists game development credits as executive producer on Starbreeze Studios' Enclave as well as Treasure's Stretch Panic and Bangai-O.

Finally, Miller is co-founder of Blur Studio, a visual effects studio frequently tapped by AAA publishers for cinematics and ads for their games. Their recent work has included spots for Destiny 2, Far Cry 5, Middle-Earth: Shadow of War, Titanfall 2, Mafia III, and Dishonored 2. Long-time Blur creative Jeff Fowler will be even be making his feature film directorial debut with Sonic the Hedgehog. Fowler was nominated for an Oscar in 2004 for directing the CG short film Gopher Broke.

The Sonic film was originally announced last year with a 2018 target release date. The Hollywood Reporter did not indicate what release window Paramount was hoping to hit with its new acquisition.