All right, everyone.
This is Jeff Fowler, director of Sonic the Hedgehog.
Hey, my name is Ben Schwartz.
I play the voice of Sonic in Sonic the Hedgehog.
And this is the director commentary.
- And, I guess, the voice-over commentary. - Two for one.
- You get us both. - Thanks for being here.
Do you want to take them through any of this?
Yeah. There's not really a better way to start a Sonic the Hedgehog movie
than a... Wait for it...
SEGA.
Oh, we, by the way, it's not in the movie,
but Jeff and I, for fun, created a "me saying, 'SEGA, '
harmonizing with myself," remember that? SEGA.
It was 12 different versions of your voice.
12 different versions of me saying, "SEGA."
It might be in there somewhere buried.
- That'd be amazing. - Deeply, deeply buried.
- Unbelievable. - Wow.
Already gave you a scoop, guys.
And of course, the opening Paramount logo with the rings
was just another opportunity to do something really fun,
and reference the game.
So, we're very happy we were able to do that,
and swap the traditional stars out for the Sonic rings.
Why is that incredibly handsome hedgehog
being chased by a madman with a mustache from the Civil War?
So this felt like a really fun way you come into the movie,
just tease Sonic as we know and love him,
kind of dropping right into a really cool action scene,
but not go too far.
By the way, in this movie, I do more than one Jim Carrey reference.
That is the first one, from Ace Ventura, when he goes,
"Let's see that in instant replay..."
- Hey, we gotta steal from the best, right? - And then we did that there.
There's one more. Let's see if you remember where it is.
So, obviously, this is a really, really exciting opportunity
to take the Green Hill Zone from the game
and just visualize it in this really great, really cinematic way.
And I just couldn't be happier with how it came out.
It's so lush and beautiful and fun.
And look at little Sonic running around.
By the way, it should be said, also, that one of the first drafts of this film
didn't have that action start at the beginning, right?
- You put that in later on. - That's correct. Yeah.
Just in terms of the structure of the movie,
I think some of the backstory was kind of the trickiest to solve.
Only because... it is a little heavier in tone,
you know, a little darker, just in terms of these bad guys coming after Sonic
and his guardian, Longclaw, giving her life to protect him.
So, we had it a little bit later in the movie,
and it just felt a little heavy when we were kind of wanting
to get into some of the fun stuff and the lighter elements.
So, once we kind of reworked it a little bit and put it up front,
and made it a little bit more action-orientated, it felt great.
It was just good to get some of these backstory elements presented up front.
Can I say, Jeff, I've known you for two or three years now,
this is the most NPR I've ever heard you in my entire life.
You're talking very gently and softly...
It's 90 minutes, I want to be... But you're right.
This is exciting stuff. I'm gonna sound more...
So, are these villains from the video game at all? No.
They're based on the echidnas,
which, of course, as everyone knows and loves
one particular echidna by the name of Knuckles,
but we thought they might make a good basis for bad guys.
So not specifically anyone from the Sonic Universe
but based off the species of the echidnas.
Look how much emotion you bring right at the beginning of the movie.
Yeah. Yeah, I know we want to get off in an exciting and dramatic way.
- Origin story. - Yeah, baby.
Yeah, baby. Hard cut to...
And here we are. Green Hills, Montana.
And just this scene that we really loved,
which is so simple but just felt right for Sonic,
which is the idea of a speed trap,
and a small-town sheriff, and Sonic just having a little fun,
going back and forth and seeing how fast he could go.
I'm bored.
Tom, do you readme? Are you there?
No, Wade, I'm actually on a yacht in Barbados.
With Rihanna.
O-M-G.
That's Adam Pally.
I was in a sketch and improv group with Adam Pally and a guy named Gil Ozeri
called Hot Sauce.
That's how I started my career out at Upright Citizens Brigade in New York.
So the idea that I get to be in a movie with Adam here
makes me very pleased.
Also, it should be known that James Marsden is
one of the most attractive human beings I've seen in my entire life.
And also incredibly funny.
This was actually his first day of shooting.
We had him just on the side of the highway in this cop car
and just asked him to do all these jokes and gags
on just being bored out of his mind. And he gave us so much great stuff.
And of course, we couldn't include all of it.
But it was just such a great start to the shoot,
and really, kind of, I think, showed how much fun he was gonna have
- with the character... - What day number was this?
This was actually day one.
- Really? - Sheriff Tom in the car,
being bored, and all these little...
Yeah, him getting out and then finding the quill, this is all...
What's the very first shot you shot? What's the very last shot you shot?
I think the first shot was actually that wide, the crane shot,
the establish of this highway and then it booming down,
and then...
The last shot? I'll have to give that some thought.
It would have been the mushroom planet stuff.
- Oh, yeah, with Jim at the end. - Yeah. Yeah.
Just kidding. A duck stole a bagel.
Did Pally improvise that? "A duck stole a bagel"? It's great.
No, but I certainly think he could have. He's an incredibly funny individual.
So this little turtle beat,
and this is obviously our first introduction to Sonic...
in Green Hills, sort of, of age,
and we came up with this little turtle gag, which we loved,
and really spoke to Sonic's personality of being very fun-loving,
and trying to do this little guy a favor and give him the ride of his life.
- I haven't seen this yet. - Yeah.
When I do voice-over, often times it's rough versions of it,
or animatics or something like that.
Yeah, and it's me promising you that it'll be funny when we do it,
because it's usually...
especially in the early days,
it takes a little while to get everything dialed in.
And that turtle thing, you added that.
There was a tiny little piece, and then you...
- Yes. Yeah. Well... - You kept making that bigger.
Building and building that beat up more and more.
Yeah.
So this is obviously really fun,
kind of creating this little cave, this little kid's bedroom for Sonic,
and show how he's been living all these years
since he got to Earth, and sort of accumulating all this stuff,
and just having his little routine
and all his imaginative little ways of entertaining himself.
That was an Easter egg, right? The bandana was an Easter egg.
- Yep. - You should point them all out.
- Here's another one. - Hill Top Road.
That's Hill Top Zone from Sonic 2.
Of course, rings, about as Sonic as it gets.
And if I'm ever discovered, I'll follow Longclaw's instructions...
May or may not be some fun little Easter eggs on this map right here.
Let's see if you can find them all.
There's a SEGA Saturn logo in there somewhere.
This is the part, in terms of voice-over, we must have done 20 or something...
20 or something recordings, maybe more.
But this beginning part, explaining all this stuff,
- was the thing we did more than anything. - I think you're right.
And it was pages of dialogue, and we did it...
We must have done seven or eight versions of it.
Yeah. Well, you're always trying to find the funniest way to present it,
and obviously time is always a factor
and really wanting it just to be really pithy and fun
and so, yeah, we definitely...
And the other thing, too, is when you're working in animation,
you do have the opportunity to rework stuff a little bit
versus live action, when you shoot what you shoot,
but in the animation world, things are little more malleable.
You can kind of continue to tweak and to plus.
- I would say one of... - Sanic.
- Oh, that's a great reference. - There's a Sanic. Yep.
And that guy on the left, Scott, that was just laughing as the bar patron,
was a gentleman who doubled as Sonic in Vancouver.
- Correct. Very funny individual. - Really nice guy.
Yeah. Really great to have his help.
I chatted with him before we did it, kind of, like, explaining...
going through the script and stuff like that.
And then I'm sure he played around, too, when he was over there.
- He's, I heard, a great improviser. - Yeah.
No, he was fantastic.
So, that little piece of the Crazy Carl stuff,
just going back to some scenes that, originally, were longer,
or were we kind of repurposed...
and that's another thing you can see in the additional materials
was a really great scene that I loved.
It was this kind of fun, sort of nighttime in the forest,
a truck drives out, sets a bunch of traps,
you realize this guy has a plan for catching Sonic,
but Sonic is just too fast,
and he's just playing all these gags on him.
But ultimately, as we were reworking the beginning of this film,
it just didn't quite work as well.
It felt like we needed to just get to Sonic a little sooner
because that was all very teasing.
It was more about...
meeting the townspeople before we met Sonic.
So after a little bit of reworking,
we ended up with a really cool San Francisco opening shot and sequence.
Do you listen to a lot of director's commentary, Jeff?
Yeah, I think they're great.
I especially remember, when I was in art school and working on projects,
I would just put a movie on and put a director commentary on,
and I just really loved all the stories
- and the little details. - And fall asleep to it.
There was no sleep in art school. It was...
It was a lot of all-nighters.
-Tika Sumpter -Yes.
We were very lucky with our whole cast. Everyone was so funny, so charming.
And we had just such a great time shooting the movie.
- We shot it in Vancouver. - Correct.
- Lovely place to make a movie. - Yeah.
- Great food. - Very talented crew.
"We have reviewed your application to the San Francisco Police Department,
and pending interdepartmental review and background check,
we are happy to inform you that you have been selected to join our team."
- Oh, my God! - Wow.
Oh, my God.
Had a lot of fun designing these cakes, the good news and the bad news versions.
You should talk about your background a little bit. Talk about...
For people who may not have researched you a little bit,
because I think your background helped so much in this particular project,
and obviously this is a huge opportunity to direct this type of movie, the scope,
but I feel like all the stuff that you had in animation and directing in the past
really culminated in this.
So where did you come from? Where did you come from?
Blur Studio, in Culver City, California.
Spent 15 years there, working in visual effects and animation.
Was hired right out of school by Tim Miller,
who directed Deadpool, and he's one of the producers on Sonic.
And, yeah, he just really created an amazing atmosphere
for artists and animators and I just really enjoyed working there.
And one of the first things I worked on
was actually Shadow the Hedgehog video game cinematics,
and that created a really great relationship with SEGA,
and we just kept in touch ever since,
and so the opportunity for Sonic came along,
and Tim was very instrumental in vouching for me,
and saying, "Hey, I think this guy would do a great job."
And so I was very fortunate to have that opportunity,
and... could not have had a better experience making the movie.
It's amazing.
Worked out well 'cause we got along great, and...
we're excited that we had the opportunity to make this movie.
But even before that, you directed an animated short.
- Correct. Yes. Thank you. - I'm trying to help you out, man.
- God. - Well.
There was a short, and it was called Gopher Broke.
-Gopher Broke -That's right. And I was...
I was fortunate enough to make it at Blur when I was there.
That's probably my first directing opportunity
and it actually went on to get nominated for an Academy Award that year.
Can you do... Most of your stuff is in graphic animation, correct?
Most of the stuff is through computers?
Can you do longhand? Can you do...
- You mean like 2D vs. 3D? - Yes.
In terms of... 'Cause the stuff I've seen you do is mostly 3D.
I definitely have a traditional sort of art background.
I mean, 3D animation didn't really exist
when I was in middle school and high school.
So, it was all hand-drawn stuff and drawing.
But then as soon as movies like Jurassic Park and Toy Story came along,
I was just completely hooked by visual effects
and what it can do for storytelling.
Yeah, then I just wanted to find a place where I could study that,
and that was the Ringling School of Art and Design
in Sarasota, Florida.
It was a great place to...
Right next to the Ringling Brothers Circus, right?
- It is. Yes, they are related. - Oh, I was doing a bit. Is that real?
Yeah. No, it is. It is.
Whose kid... Isn't this somebody's kid?
This is my nephew.
- That's your nephew. - Yes.
That was... a very blatant use of directing power, to cast him.
- He did an amazing job. - He did an incredible job.
Yeah, he did a wonderful job.
Now, this is one of my favorite scenes in the whole movie,
especially when Sonic comes out.
And it just really spoke to what I wanted from the movie,
which is this kid who's kind of living by himself,
but he's got this really great imagination,
and he's got this super speed,
and what would it be like to have super speed,
and the wish fulfillment aspect of playing baseball,
and being so fast that you can play all the positions.
I just thought it was so fun,
and really just gave this movie, Sonic,
just a personality and a charm.
That was really great.
It's also such a kids' thing,
- to pretend you're every single person. - Absolutely.
It's such a fun little kid...
Anytime I played Sonic, the whole thing was, obviously he can run really fast,
and he has all this energy, but the idea is that he's a kid.
He's a really excited kid that never really gets to get out of his cave,
so when he gets to get out, he's even more excited.
And all the energy you see in his running
is used in the positive stuff he does in his real life.
Yeah. We had fun writing all these little pieces.
This is one of the first things you finalized.
I remember watching this before a lot of the other stuff.
Yeah. I think there's probably two or three scenes in the entire movie
that we designed very early on and just said, "This is it.
This is our Sonic. This is our tone.
This is our world."
And this baseball scene was definitely one of them.
It just kind of... yeah.
I haven't seen final versions of a lot of this, so this is exciting.
Yeah.
Also, the music already nods to the original video games.
Yeah, Tom Holkenborg aka Junkie XL.
We were so lucky to get him and to have his help on the score.
And he did such an amazing job. I just love all the music in this movie.
And then... So, yeah, like the other side of this,
I mean, all the fun we were having with Sonic playing all the parts,
but then for it to end very emotionally
and really have you feel for this character
and really understand how hard it is
that despite his super speed and all his creativity and imagination,
at the end of the day, it's not a replacement for having real connection,
and that is what the movie is about,
is Sonic needing to find that community, find a friend, find a family,
which we just thought grounded it in some really relatable stuff.
And also, it forced me to cry in the voice-over booth,
which is the reason why you said, anytime I cried, it made you happy.
Or we're going in the right direction for sure.
- There's Pally. - Yeah, he's great.
That town's in trouble if that's their police force.
Cell tower seems to be working though.
What is going on?
Well, gosh, I think the power's out.
Yeah, no dur! The lights are out.
What was the process of getting Marsden?
Did you have a bunch of meetings with him before and you talked?
See, I... This is exciting for me, because I was not there.
I was in Vancouver maybe for three or four days.
What was great about James is,
he had had plenty of experience with this type of thing.
I mean, it's not an easy thing to ask of an actor, I think,
to put them next to a tennis ball
or basically a character that's not there and to get the right performance,
especially a comedy performance.
And James had done the work before
and just knew how to do it, and just absolutely crushed it.
'Cause this is not easy,
to share a scene with someone who is not physically there.
He's a great actor, man. By the way, what you said before,
- he is so funny. - Yes.
He is so funny and he's so humble about how funny he is
that he never admits that he's funny.
He's great.
Yeah. I mean, everyone.
What I loved about this cast more than anything was
everyone was so funny and always had pitches and ideas
and just made everything better,
which is really, I think...
the best version of movie making is to allow for everyone
to, sort of, pitch ideas.
And of course they might not all make it into the movie,
but I love hearing them,
and a lot of the stuff wouldn't have been as good as it was
without all these ideas from the cast, from the crew.
Now we're about to get introduced to Robotnik.
What was the process of getting Jim Carrey?
I just sat down with him and had a really great discussion,
and I'm obviously a huge fan of everything he's ever done,
but certainly, kind of, grew up with all the classics.
Ace Ventura and The Mask and Dumb and Dumber,
and we were so fortunate that he was excited and interested,
and he just brought so much to this character,
'cause, I mean, it was really funny...
on paper and in the script,
but Jim just made it his own.
He's so funny in this movie.
Yeah, it's so original.
And it hits a part of your bones that the movie is...
Of course, he's incredible in everything and has been,
but it harkens back to some of that stuff that you remember as a kid
and his performances, and you're like,
"He could just move his finger and he's funny."
- Absolutely. - He's just a funny human.
- Yes, he just can't help it. - He is.
I am a huge fan of his.
We used to...
I mean, Dumb and Dumber and Ace Ventura,
those were things that we watched as if they were scripture.
Right, right.
Sacred.
So, yeah, really fun designing this introductory scene,
this giant truck pulling onto the baseball field.
I remember having some discussions and concern
that we were gonna drive this big truck into the outfield
and it was just basically gonna get stuck there
and we wouldn't be able to do another take but fortunately it worked out
and we were able to...
Fake mustache, right?
- I'll never tell. - Wow.
- Yes, yes. Yes, yes. - It has to be. Look at it.
It's amazing.
Yeah. We had so much fun designing this character.
I mean, obviously, we wanted to be respectful of the source material,
and Dr. Robotnik looks very different in the games,
but this being an origin story,
I also wanted to back into that look of Robotnik
and please start him as the government guy,
and ground him a little bit in terms of introducing him as a character
and then build on that and then grow it into the character
that the fans...
- might be familiarized. - You're right.
It is basically an origin story for both Sonic and Robotnik.
Yeah. I mean, that was really this being...
going back to the inspiration and the 1991 game,
and just keeping it very simple, keeping it Sonic versus Robotnik,
and just really telling a really great story for each of them,
and giving Sonic a really great character arc,
which is why we felt we needed to introduce him
as a younger hedgehog running around his island
and then set him up on Earth,
and watch him go through some growth and development
as he goes on his adventure.
Also, all these little things, nods to all the electronic building
and tinkering that he does in the video games, right?
All these little egg pods and stuff like that.
We definitely...
There being the great debate, whether it's Dr. Robotnik or "Eggman"
depending on which part of the world you're asking the question in.
But his drones, these little flying egg things,
we thought it would be fun for that to inform
why does Sonic call him "Eggman,"
and it's because Sonic, sort of, meets him through
these little flying drones that are egg-shaped, and so,
Sonic refers to him as Eggman,
just like Sonic refers to the Sheriff Wachowski character
- as Donut Lord. - Donut Lord.
He just has these fun little nicknames for everybody
and Tika's character is Pretzel Lady.
So, it was a fun idea for Sonic to have developed his own
description for people, just based on not knowing any better
because he's living as this outsider looking in.
What was it like for you as a first-time director
to direct a legend right out of the gate?
And also, someone that you've seen be the lead
of $150 million movies.
So, what's your... What was that like?
'Cause, for me, I would be, of course,
if I was directing someone like Jim Carrey,
I'd be nervous right off the bat,
but I guess you just don't have time, so what was that like?
Just having enough conversations before we were there on the day, shooting,
and just trading ideas,
and certainly, you get to do that when you're blocking a scene,
and you're talking about ways to do it and to make it funny,
and so, yeah, you just kind of work through it.
It's a sharing of ideas, and it's a collaboration,
and I think that certainly is a way
of getting everybody comfortable with each other
before the cameras are rolling.
So having enough, I guess that's the trick,
is just having enough time...
to discuss, share ideas
leading into the actual shoot that you feel comfortable with each other
and, yeah, you can just have some fun and have the atmosphere be light,
and hopefully get some great stuff.
...lightning shot out of your butt, and now they're coming for you.
We did so many versions of that. I don't know which one you used.
I love this little shot, this little manic collection of all his items...
Okay, toothbrush, toothpaste, hair gel, night-light.
Funny hat.
Yeah, the funny hat.
I mean, one thing we learned very quickly on
was giving Sonic props and outfit changes
was just a big win.
I mean, it was so fun to dress him up in all these little outfits,
or give him all these little props that we just couldn't enough of it.
So, anytime there was an opportunity to do it, we jumped on it.
That hat alludes to a callback
when we were wearing a cowboy hat in the cowboy bar.
- Who knew? - It's true. You're right.
- Make him cry. - Yeah.
- Hey. - Hey.
Whatcha doing?
Just coloring with Jojo and Rachel.
Ah, that sounds half fun.
Hey, exciting stuff here. We had a power outage.
The whole town went dark.
It was like a sign telling me to get out of Dodge.
By the way, the reason that I got the role,
or I don't know, you must know more than I do,
but I had a meeting with Tim Miller about a different project,
and while I was there, Jeff was literally sitting...
- I sit next to Tim Miller. - Yep.
It was destiny.
- It was right there. - He saw I had Sonic stuff on my desk
- you were, like, "I love Sonic." - I'm like, "Hey. Let's talk."
And then Tim goes, "Yeah. You should talk to Jeff,
'cause you might be perfect for..." I was, like, "Oh, yeah."
Then you called me and you were, like, "Hey, it would be a dream
if you could do this," and I was, like,
"You know what? Let's do it. I'm excited about the opportunity."
Yeah. No, it was fun. You can just tell that you got it,
you got the character, and you brought some new stuff to it
'cause, I mean, I love...
Many actors have played Sonic over the years,
but I really loved, obviously, the humor that you brought to it.
I think, in the movie, you really just give him a...
There's the vulnerability, there's charm,
there's an earnestness, optimism.
It really just, for me, it was a perfect fit.
So we were very lucky to find you so early on,
and, yeah, I love where we landed with movie Sonic.
You have to do it. There's no other option.
All right.
SFPD, pending background check.
Paws in the air!
Uh, meow?
A meow.
Now a meme, a "meow."
For me, it was always try to keep a part of the process,
'cause I loved this so much.
And then, I remember getting a phone call.
I had just finished doing a podcast and I was walking out,
and I didn't know if I was gonna be this role or not
because obviously, there's protocol and stuff like that people do,
and then you called me personally to tell me that I got the role.
That was such a big, exciting moment for me when you called.
That's great, man.
As you alluded to before, I mean, the trick with these animated characters
is you just record a lot of material and you rewrite stuff,
and you rewrite it, and you rewrite it, and you're always game for it,
always ad-libbing, giving us variations and options on stuff.
And that was... That's really...
There's no secret. It's really just working the ideas
and just going as far as you can to get to the good stuff.
I'll talk a little bit about the process of that,
but stop me if there's something you want to talk about on the screen, Jeff,
'cause you know way more about this stuff than I do.
- No, go for it. - Okay.
So the process for when we get to really recording,
obviously we do table reads and you play with the words then,
but what Jeff alluded to was very much true,
where because Sonic is CG and animated,
Jeff can't re-shoot all these scenes. It would be impossible,
it would cost too much money,
but it was just sketches of what Sonic would be doing
so we could change what Sonic said as much as we wanted,
and we did quite a bit. So we'd do the script,
then Jeff and I would think of different things to say,
and then Jeff would give me a leash to go improvise,
because we're there, it doesn't cost money for me to make up stuff.
Then Jeff, as director, would figure out what felt best,
and he would kind of...
There'd be moments where in the script, we'd be, like, "You know what?
This feels like it needs something like this."
And we'd take a second, rework the words,
and it was incredibly collaborative,
which was so exciting for me, especially coming from an improv background
so to have Jeff and Toby Ascher in that room was very exciting.
But to me that was so cool that you were open enough to be like,
"Let's try a bunch of stuff here, let's do this."
And we would rework words and rewrite stuff
and we would improvise, and then, in post,
we'd find out what worked the best, and once you find that track,
we'd then follow that track.
Is that a pretty accurate way of describing what our process was?
- It is. - There's a lot of playing around
and a lot of reworking and stuff like that.
But it starts with a great script and knowing Jeff with the characters,
and us all agreeing on that.
Yeah. And we had some very, very funny, very talented writers on this.
- Yes. - Josh Miller and Pat Casey
are wonderful, wonderful people,
and really just enjoyed the collaboration every step of the way.
- So funny. - And worked really hard.
Every time I was like, "Hey, can we push... workshop this idea a little bit?"
And they would always have four or five, six, seven line pitches
with alts,
and just constantly giving us stuff to try, which was great.
They were great.
Practically finishing each other's sentences.
Okay, bye.
Hello there!
Can I help you?
Good morning, my rural chum.
This is a great little scene with James and Jim
I know... that James was very excited about.
Was this their first scene together?
I believe so.
That's crazy, 'cause it's a great one.
Yeah. Yeah, this is fantastic.
He's a good man.
- Yeah. Come on in! - Great.
Take all the readings you need.
Except,
doesn't the power company usually take their readings from outside the house?
That way they can check them even if you're not home.
Also my buddy Spencer works for the gas company,
and he's more of an Ultimate Frisbee guy.
So, you want to tell me why you think I'm dumb enough
to just let you walk inside my house?
Who came up with that idea? The stuff on his glove?
It almost looks like a reverse Power Glove.
That'd be the wrong reference though.
It's the wrong...
But who came up with that? And how did that start?
I think that might have been a discussion I had with my production designer, Sean,
Sean Haworth.
We were always trying to look for little ways to...
Actually, no. Now that I'm thinking about it,
I remember Jim, in particular, talking about the glove
and wanting that texting, kind of finger movement,
sort of, worked into it somehow.
So I think we had the idea for the wrist pad,
and then Jim came up with the idea
of adding the little buttons on the palm of the glove
so he could do the little interactive stuff.
- That's great. - Yeah, it was a wonderful little detail.
But my dentist calls me Rob.
So good.
- This is a great scene. - Yeah.
I'm sure what you're here for is very serious,
but it's got nothing to do with me.
You can ask anyone in town.
- Everyone knows me. - I bet they do.
I'm sure you're hella popular with the Jebs and Merles and Billy Bobs
in this glorified gas-station rest stop.
Betcha go way back to the days of tippin' cows
and playin' in a jug band!
- That's so great. - Give me a break.
Yeah, you can really see them there, on the palms of the hands,
the pad, the little interface
- on the glove. Yeah. - Yeah, even on the tips of the fingers.
And that was really fun to design.
I mean, Jim Carrey was involved even with the costume design
and had ideas, and we did lots of fittings,
and we'd discuss ideas,
and my costume designer, Deb McGuire, she did a phenomenal job
coming up with the looks for all this stuff.
And it was great to have an actor like Jim involved and have ideas and pitches,
again, as we were, kind of, creating the character,
and it just made everything better.
He's so good, man. And all those little things add to it.
So, like, the haircut's perfect.
The mustache is perfect. The outfit's perfect.
All the little things add to the character so much, but it's...
Oh, I don't know which one he chose.
Oh, I hope they aren't scanning me with X-rays.
I had kind of an embarrassing lunch.
So, yeah. This was a fun idea, something we had never really seen,
which is this idea of Sonic to actually be able
to peek out of his ball shape a little bit,
- felt like a fun... - Oh, yeah.
And then tucking him in with a stack of the sports equipment.
It just felt like a fun little image
of Sonic trying to disguise himself amongst all these other balls,
but being able to actually peek out and see some of the anxiety
as the drones close in.
Raccoons.
- There's a lot of animals on this movie. - Yeah, ducks. We saw ducks.
- We saw raccoons. - Turtles, ducks.
There was a possum scene that didn't make the final cut.
Diva. The possum was a diva.
- Dogs. Baby ducks. - Oh, yeah. You've got a Golden Retriever.
Humans.
- That's great. That's great. - Yeah.
It's just, he could literally move, and it's funny.
- Yeah. - He's just so aware of his silhouette
in relation to the camera.
It's just incredible, what he's able to do.
Now, that was plugged in, right? 'Cause I saw some old footage.
- Some of them. - That quill that's plugged in.
Yeah, definitely when Marsden picked it up in the kitchen.
'Cause we needed it to have that kind of glow.
But this one is just, when it's just kind of the...
That was one of the ideas we were developing very early on,
which is this idea of, like, when Sonic is running around,
he's not necessarily...
the quills aren't glowing, he's not generating the electricity,
but in the really emotional moments
where it's almost reaching a next level,
a deeper level of his power
that even he doesn't maybe necessarily understand...
He's a kid.
That's such an exciting thing also for a movie that...
for a movie that, kind of, aims itself towards all ages and everything,
you know what I mean.
How many movies are there where the star's an action hero
and is a child? And a hedgehog?
- Right. But, you know... - Yeah, it's very...
Wait. Is this the piece where...
There is a piece somewhere in this movie where you use the video game animation
of me almost falling off of something, right?
Yeah. That's in the hotel, right?
Yeah, that's an Easter egg, when he gets to the edge of something,
he has to do his precarious little balancing.
I'm gonna puke!
We did that a bunch of times.
These are the toughest.
Anything where Sonic and Tom are actually interacting physically,
it's always tricky to get it to look right.
Doctor! Are you okay?
I saw a guy race out of here and thought...
- These two worked amazing together. - Yeah.
Lee and Jim worked incredible together.
Yeah. Lee Majdoub as Agent Stone.
I mean, they just really... It just took on a life of its own.
- I remember this particular being... - Oh, my goodness.
That was Jim's pitch.
And he was, "Fine, put your hands in my mouth."
Exactly. "I'll do anything in the name of comedy."
And rightly so. I don't think anyone would...
He crushes. Imagine how nerve-racking that must be.
As someone, you're like,
"Hey, all your scenes are to play the foil to Jim Carrey being crazy."
Yeah. No, Agent Stone just ended up such a great character.
And their relationship just really, again, just...
- Stone? - Doctor?
Call Optical Illusions.
Tell them I need new frames.
Even throwing it like that.
Oh, and bring that quill.
Yes, Doctor.
Are you able to relax now?
Do you feel... 'Cause you've been going nonstop for a very long time.
The movie's about to come out.
I was about to say, we are probably two-and-a-half weeks... No.
- Is that it? - Three weeks.
Three weeks. February 14th.
So, yes. I wouldn't say "relaxed" is quite the right word.
I'm certainly excited for this to get out there
for everyone to see what we've been working on,
but I probably won't truly be able to relax until sometime in late February.
So, I'd like you to take me to San Francisco
so I can get back my rings and use them to go to the mushroom planet.
- Mushroom planet. - Yes!
Right.
Okay. You're about to see the second Jim Carrey reference of mine.
The first one was... the rewind.
I wonder if Jim knows that I did these because of him.
He does now.
That's very exciting. It's very exciting if he does.
This one is a gentle nod.
This one isn't a hard... This one isn't as hard.
It's coming up in a bit.
So what's in front of James right now in real life?
- Just a little gray ball on a stand. - A little gray ball on a stand.
Just a height reference and eye line reference.
I remember when I visited the set,
you had many different versions of the Sonic things.
Right. What we had was... a simple one
that was made out of rubber that you could just throw around.
Yeah.
Just because things tend to get a little beat up on a film set,
and then we had one that actually had fur and quills
and was more a lighting reference
- but that... - Here's the Carrey.
It's coming up.
All right, I heard you the first time. You don't have to pile it on.
Very exciting.
I'm wet. I'm cold.
There's a fish on my head!
That's supposed to be a reference to
"Our pets' heads are falling off" from Dumb and Dumber.
I hear it. It's great.
All right, this is one of my favorite little bits.
And he's fluffy.
Fluffy Sonic. Adorable.
All right, whoever is making dolls, time to make "Fluffy Sonic."
Again, how many things can we do to have fun with Sonic's appearance?
And a fluffy Pomeranian version seemed like a lot of fun.
All right, there's gonna be rules on this trip.
I mean, if there's not a Funko fluffy Sonic doll,
I don't know what's going on.
Would you stop with the "Donut Lord"?
I have a name. It's Tom.
I'm Sonic.
Sonic. Sonic.
So you've been spying on us all for years.
I love this.
I wouldn't call it "spying."
We were all just hanging out,
only I wasn't invited and no one knew I was there.
I can't believe Crazy Carl was right all this time.
Yeah. You should call him Super Observant Carl instead.
That line from the table read to when we did it made me laugh.
- You should call him Super Observant Carl. - Great line. Loved that line.
This is a great gag, too.
- We played with this, too. - Yeah.
It's hard not to do these speed gags.
They're just so fun. It's...
A mouse pad.
When are we gonna get there?
We will get there when we get there.
I remember I literally saw a cut of this and I said,
"Is there any way you can make that paddle game go on for way too long?"
You were like, "Maybe. I don't know."
We have the technology.
This is gonna blow everybody's mind.
There's something called a phone booth in this scene.
There was a lot of talk about that, remember?
Yeah.
Are kids gonna know what a phone booth is?
- Yeah. I remember that. - Yeah. It's true.
They are hard to find these days.
It's a payphone.
It's mostly for drug dealers and...
It's a great line.
Stay in the car. I don't want anybody seeing you.
Fine.
Okay, where were you in this? You're still...
Yeah, we were in Vancouver.
And this was a location we found...
something that we thought we could put a bunch of neon,
and park a bunch of hot rods in front of.
But you built the inside of this. I remember that.
Yeah, that was a stage. The interior was a stage,
exterior was... this was a location.
This has gotta be such a fun day to shoot.
Oh, yeah.
It's just nonsense outside. It's craziness.
- Look at this. - Yeah.
It's also very fun. One of the reasons I love animation
is that, whether it's for whatever TV show or this movie or something is that...
I'll do the voice so early on,
and then sometimes you'll be big with it, or choose your moments with it,
and you have no idea what the character's gonna be doing
until they actually animate it a year and a half later.
We tried to do as many storyboards as possible
and that's the same when you work in animation, where,
yeah, you really wanna figure out what the beats are,
what the staging is, but it's also really helpful for the cast and the crew
to be able to edit them into a simple little story reel,
and to be able to show someone, like, "Hey, this is what the scene is.
- This is what we're doing." - Yup.
And that was always incredibly helpful, especially with something like Sonic,
where you just... He's not there.
I mean, there's no way to really show what his action is when you're shooting.
So, having the storyboards, having the previz
which is a fancier version of storyboards
that actually involves some very simple computer graphics animation,
it was just so vital to...
You should explain what previz is a little bit more
because in the animation world it's not used as much as in this.
So previz is literally almost like a 3D rendering of what the room will look like,
and what the characters are gonna be doing, correct?
Right, right. Very simple, very quickly assembled
in the interest of having a first look at it
and be able to make changes.
But yeah, it's really just taking the storyboard, which is a drawing,
and building it in 3D with actual 3D models, and some simple...
Sometimes if it involves humans, you may do a motion capture shoot,
so you can actually have a character moving around the environment
and set up the camera accordingly and design all the camera choreography.
We did a bit of that, especially for action sequences.
-We did one for our drone highway, -Yeah.
Our big drone highway sequence later in the movie,
where you want the cameras to be really dynamic and exciting
and it's just hard to do that in just a storyboard drawing
'cause you just end up doing a lot of drawings,
and there's perspective changes.
And the best way to do it really is to try to do some simple 3D work.
That really frees you up.
I will tell people about this!
How did you guys find Pally?
You know, I think...
- Is that a Toby? - Yeah, Toby, one of the producers,
I think had pitched that and it seemed great.
Yeah.
So I saw a previz of this entire thing inside.
- Yes. - I remember that. You really...
Yeah, especially the bullet time,
because there is so much work that was gonna need to go in to designing that.
So, was that a chili dog reference?
He was bringing chili dogs, right?
There are some various, some of these...
I mean, the big one is during the actual slow-mo sequence
- when he eats it off the waitress'... - Yes.
...serving tray. But yeah, when I was talking about the baseball field
and how there were a handful of scenes that we just really loved.
And kind of what we want to do with the movie in terms of
just planting a flag and saying,
"This is it. This is our Sonic. This is our tone."
That was basically the baseball field but then,
also this bar fight frozen moment thing,
which of course we've all seen frozen moment stuff and bullet time,
but we thought we could do something really fun with Sonic
and bring his personality and humor and just, kind of, make it our version
of slow-mo, which we thought ended up really fun.
- Make his a Mello Yello, please. - Okay.
And again, going back to just... Sonic's in a disguise.
He's got a cowboy hat. He's got sunglasses.
- Give him props. - Give him props.
Give him props and give him props.
This is really great set, too.
- Great set. - Yeah.
I got to see this set when I visited Vancouver.
Just so much character, so much detail.
Our production design team and our set decorators
they just knocked everything out of the park.
It was so much fun to shoot in these sets.
Oh, Sonic!
Uh-huh.
You know what I'm always impressed with?
First of all, the fans of this property are unbelievable.
But unbelievable in many reasons.
One of which is, they love this character very much. They want it...
They really do care about this property.
But also, they're so talented.
- The fan art I've seen... - Oh, yeah. Yeah.
- It's insane. They're talented artists... - It's one of my favorite things,
is when the fan and the artist community embraces a character or a movie,
and then all you see in social media
is everyone doing their own take or their own version of something,
it's so cool.
And people for this property in particular, to me, it's just...
The artists that are doing this,
the men and women who are doing this, are amazing.
Yeah.
'Cause I've seen so many cowboy Sonics already,
- and they're great. - Right, right. Yeah.
And people haven't even seen the movie yet.
Pop-A-Shot.
Amazing. And also, I will say that while we're talking about the community,
and how we got very lucky is a...
There have been a lot of people
or there have been a couple of people who have done the Sonic voice before,
- and have all been amazing. - Yes.
- I mean, very incredible performances... - Yes. Yes.
- ...by multiple people. - Yes.
So there was a piece also that when this came out, the trailer,
I was hoping that people would embrace me as a version of Sonic as well.
And even from the first trailer,
people were very much on board and supportive of me
and it just made the whole process even more exciting for me
- to enjoy it. You know what I mean? - Amen.
It was very, very cool of everybody to be supportive.
Yeah. We never thought of movie Sonic as being a replacement
for any of the other Sonics.
No, 'cause Sonic exists in so many different forms.
- TV shows, games, the comic books. - Video games.
There's just so much Sonic out there.
So this was just our own little addition to the library.
It is very exciting though for me to think that this could be one of the ways
- that people are introduced to Sonic. - Sure.
Kids. And then they go and they get to see a Broadway performance.
Yeah, they get to see Ryan's and everybody's performance...
which I think will be...
I don't know, it's a very...
- Super cool. - ...emotional, cool thing for me to think.
- This was a great day. - Yeah.
- Oh, yeah. You kept that in? - Yeah.
Uh-oh!
How many days did this fight take?
You know, it was pretty contained. It wasn't too terribly...
- Marsden can do real stunts. - Oh, yeah. He's got the chops.
Who do I get to beat up?
Hey! Has anybody seen my waitress?
Still waiting on those buffalo wings.
Why, you!
- Here you go. Three Stooges reference. - Yeah.
Doesn't even faze him, 'cause I'm wearing those soft gloves
Really?
- Oh, great song choice also. - And here we go.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, we tried a lot of stuff but we landed on this X Ambassadors thing.
It was just so perfect.
So cool and fun and it was just a perfect fit.
- Look how much fun he's having. - Oh, yeah.
- Like, give me a break. - Yeah.
- Tooth coming out of the mouth. - Yeah.
Yeah. This is another one where we were able to continue tweaking...
So what stopped in real life?
So, it was funny.
We did a bunch of tests with high frame-rate photography
that would have really slowed the footage down,
but what worked the best, ironically, was just everyone holding their pose.
I mean, none of these people...
- There's no sort of tricks here... - Chili dog.
Yeah, exactly, gotta get that reference in there.
So it was just photographed with everyone holding still,
and the camera movement helped sell the idea that they were frozen.
And it worked great. And then...
Were there any Easter eggs in that thing?
- Or no? - Yeah.
Not from the game though.
I think some of them were just fun, witty little...
What's the name of this restaurant?
- The Piston Pit. Yeah. - Piston Pit.
- It's a little Bugs Bunny matador. Yeah. - It's perfect.
And again, I just...
Olé!
That guy, did he hit the camera in real life?
No, he came close, but...
Toilet paper mummy.
- So, should we get out of here? - Yeah, time to go.
I love that beat.
That was amazing! Wait a second. Did we even pay our tab?
It doesn't matter!
Watch this, watch this. I always wanted to do this.
I improvised that. 'Cause in real life I always wanted to do that.
- Get 'em! - See ya, suckers!
I can't say for sure, but I think they liked me.
Come on! Don't let 'em get away!
- Yes! - Yeah!
So this is a big moment 'cause together they achieved something.
Exactly. They become real friends.
Tom was not thrilled about having to help Sonic on his journey,
but now has learned a little bit more about this little guy
and there's definitely a bond that's been formed.
This is another, just, I really love this scene.
Scratch another one off my list.
I remember we were watching different cuts of this.
I remember being like, "Hey, like,
the second that fight happens, man,
you really feel them really coming together."
I remember, even from the original first cut you had,
I was like, "Wow. You've already captured the energy and the excitement
between the two."
It was very exciting to watch.
And you said this is the only movie you will ever direct, right?
You said, "This is it." You're the opposite of Quentin Tarantino.
You want to do one and then you're done.
No, I had an amazing time. I am so fortunate.
I would love...
There it is. Upper left is when he's kind of falling off.
Yep. Yep, yep. Yep.
- Good times. - That shot, I mean, that,
it's, like, "Hey, let's do this thing where Sonic is zipping all over the place
and doing all these gags."
We're like, "Okay, great. We need, like, ten gags."
And so it becomes quite the challenge to create all the little material,
and all the little actions, but it really came together.
By the way, now that you can pause this,
now that you have some... however you're watching this right now,
you can pause it. You can actually look at all of them at the same time.
Yeah. I'm excited for that.
I like the pillow fight.
A version of Sonic having a pillow fight with himself.
- That was pretty funny. - I didn't even see that one.
Yeah.
This is a great shot. This is incredibly well-animated,
I just really... I just love the acting in here.
This was another one that, when you were designing,
this is one of the first that was totally done, right?
I remember watching this and being so proud to be a part of this movie.
That's beautiful, Ben.
'Cause it was a nice scene, too, like we had all these funny ones then,
the nice, sweet ones worked, too,
- which I think was a big deal. - Yeah. I mean, those are really...
That's hands down the hardest stuff.
We know Sonic can run fast. We know we can create cool action with him.
But we want to him to be able to act and for you to really sympathize with him.
And I'm going to quote you, you said,
"For Sonic, we need the best actor in the universe."
I think that's what you said. And then you said, "Call Schwartz."
- Is that accurate? - That's 100% accurate.
And then, when the movie wrapped,
you gave me that as a gift and you said, "Will you be my real friend?"
Did you keep any props? I didn't get to keep any props in this,
because I didn't get to go to set much.
Of course I did not. That would be completely inappropriate.
Every thing I've ever done, I've taken something from.
I've asked the prop master, but...
Even for, when I did little stuff with Star Wars, I found something to grab.
Maybe. Maybe not.
Like I'd ever tell you.
Agent Stone and Robotnik hot on the trail.
...doesn't understand the urgency of the matter.
Really?
Now that's what I call good cop, bad cop.
This is great.
He did... Jim did six or seven Vulcan neck pinch things
where he just pinched his neck and Stone just dropped to the ground.
But then, on this random take, he did this throat chop. It's hilarious.
Did Lee know it was coming?
- I don't think so. - That was so funny.
But it's just great.
Good for Lee, man.
He was in for an adventure.
He keeps up with him, too, which is great.
Yeah, he was...
He was up for everything. He was fantastic.
...and I'm not planning on dying anytime soon.
Don't be so sure. Your best friend is a magnet for danger.
- Are you anointing yourself as the bestie? - Mm-hmm.
Since we shot out on Vancouver Island on a little stretch of highway,
we were fortunate to be able to control for a couple of days.
By the way, wasn't there a week
where the weather was absolutely horrid and ruined many things?
- That is this exact sequence. - Is that true?
I wouldn't say ruined. I would say, it definitely created a little more work.
Whenever you're outside
- on location... - Explain what happened.
- 'Cause I wasn't there. - It just rained, almost nonstop.
- For this scene? - Well, for the first day of shooting.
It definitely... Especially the first half of the day, it rained incredibly hard.
And we have two units with all the toys, all the drones, all the camera trucks,
and the Ultimate Arms,
and everything you could possibly imagine,
and it was all just kind of, like, a little dead in the water
until the weather would clear, we'd shoot a little bit,
and then it would rain more.
So yeah, it was a little challenging and certainly committed us
to a certain kind of look in terms of the overcast skies and everything.
But, you can't tell.
I would never have known that there was any environmental anything.
This looks great.
Thanks.
I love this. Once this action kicks in,
this is another one of those sequences that we had so much fun designing.
And this idea of Robotnik catching up to them
- and just unleashing all his drone stuff. - This is the best.
Yeah.
- So funny. - So how did this come about?
Was there, in the script, or was it like... Is this the scene where he dances?
No, this is just him.
It is revealing that he's caught up to them.
And this, kind of, fun little volume of holographic stuff
for him to be picking out what he's gonna use to go after them.
- And this is in his van, correct? - Right.
In that big, black van that we saw at the very beginning.
So he's, sort of, activated one of his drone tanks,
and sent it after them.
That little red thing is a part of the video games
and a lot of his bad boy things, too.
- Mm-hmm. - It's a fun little callback.
Any time you miss an Easter egg, I'm gonna say it.
Yeah.
Uh-oh. Here we go.
Look, I get your poi...
Yeah!
This must have been so exciting to shoot, too.
Yeah, again having the previz,
so we really had a blueprint for what we were after,
just makes such a huge difference.
Also, I love that Sonic, while all this crazy stuff is happening,
- is still... - Going after Tom.
Yeah, he's so fixated on the "What's the real..."
And you can see it here. He's really... He feels very betrayed.
He'd give anything to be part of this small town,
and Tom's given it up and Sonic thinks he's crazy.
Also, I remember, when we were doing these takes,
that idea of you have to make sure the emotion is coming through
because it has to translate that that's why these big sonic booms happen.
Right. Yeah, we wanted there to be a very clear relation between...
- I think you pulled that off really well. - Oh, thanks.
Visually, with the lightning and everything,
but just it to be really clear that this was very upsetting to him...
and part of his emotional arc.
Guess I had a bonus life.
A nice, little... Another little Easter egg.
Oh, yeah, baby!
Sonic, one. Big tank, zero. I'm sorry.
- Did we get that on camera? - How are you not dead?
I have no idea.
Do you see me dancing?
Oh, I love that dancing, too.
"Do you see me dancing?"
So yeah, this whole sequence was built around this idea
of almost like a Russian nesting doll,
where, when you think they had won or defeated Robotnik's tech,
that there was always something else coming,
and progressively smaller felt like a real fun way to approach it.
How do you also do that, when there's an actual physical door opening...
So what's happening in real life there?
There's a guy out of frame, out of range of the camera,
that's actually operating the door for the interaction.
Incoming!
- It's my turn! - You just had one. It's mine!
Hey, stop fighting or I'm taking that thing away!
Gotta have the family road trip dropped into the middle of this thing...
just to have a little fun before we resume our life-threatening chase.
Yeah, we ended up using CG for all the Robotnik stuff,
but there were certainly discussions of maybe we could build this stuff,
but seemed like we would have more freedom and flexibility.
Yeah, just to treat it...
- This looks great. - Yeah, super cool.
Oh, come on.
Hey, everyone! Welcome back to my livestream.
Today we're destroying robots. Step one.
Yes, we did it!
No. No, he didn't.
We did not do it. Who is this guy?
- CG looks great. - Thanks.
Did you work with any of the animators before
that worked on the CG?
No, it was a new team.
But I had a wonderful experience working with them.
They really, really nailed Sonic's performance,
- and all his little mannerisms. - They did incredible.
- Yeah. Really charming performance. - They really did.
Funny.
Here. In this truck. It's happening as we speak.
That's great. That's new.
He wasn't holding an owner's manual last time I saw it.
Bring him in closer.
- What? - Bring it in closer! Hit the brakes.
You mean this one?
The other brakes!
Seeing this in a movie theater, I haven't seen it in a...
We haven't had our premieres or anything yet
but I got to see a...
Close to this take, not this take.
And seeing it in a movie theater was so exciting,
'cause even now, I've only probably seen...
There's probably 20 people in that small little theater that we saw it in.
- But to see people laugh, it's so... - Yeah.
It adds so much. It's so fun to see it
- when the audience is into it. - Especially for this type of movie, too.
There's a lot of comedy in this and a lot of heart,
and you hope that people track it all and it really seemed, like, all right.
This is a great little way to end the sequence,
in the smallest way imaginable, with this harmless little mini drone
that cuts the truck apart.
And then there's a little bomb that they have to get rid of.
- So that truck is really chopped, right? - It's really chopped, yeah.
- Did I get it? - Nope.
Here. Hold still.
I don't think we were able to return that one to the dealership.
I think that one's probably in a collector's...
- collection somewhere. - Nailed it!
"Nailed it" is a callback to...
"Nailed it" is something I try to put in a bunch of this voice-over stuff I do.
I don't know if I told you that.
I like there to be Easter eggs within the characters that I voice.
I'm not even doing a bit.
So that like, "Nailed it," I've tried to slowly put that in.
- It's in... Dewey Duck says it. - It works great.
- Yeah, I think it works beautiful. - It's your calling card.
"Nailed it."
Not looking good.
This is great.
He's so good.
Did we get 'em?
No, there they are.
They are real survivors, those two.
Can we have a moment?
He's been grabbed by the mouth, he's been choked.
You know, I won't miss you when you're gone.
He's so mean.
But my machines are diligent, relentless.
They're everything to me!
Agent Stone has been holding on to that for him.
Mm-hmm. Since the house.
That's Japanese, in case it's not clear. His little...
Now, does Jim break a lot, like, laugh a lot or not really?
I'm sorry. Like, break the scene...
- Or how does Lee not laugh at that? - I don't know.
Lord knows the crew was laughing.
You turn to your left and right,
you see a bunch of people holding their laughs
and their faces are turning beet red 'cause no one wants to ruin a take.
But this stuff's so funny that sometimes it can really be hard to suppress.
Natasha Rothwell.
- She is so great. Yeah. Yeah. - She is so funny.
All this stuff in this...
- Great comedian, too. And a writer. - The sister-in-law.
- She's so funny. - Yeah.
Especially, I mean, this whole sequence, she just steals so many scenes.
I had to ditch my phone so they couldn't track me.
- Ditch his phone? - Track you?
- Uncle Tommy! - Jojo!
You got a lot of funny people. Pally's a comedic powerhouse.
Natasha's really funny. Tika's great in this. James is great in this.
If you're trying to make a comedy, step one, hire funny people.
Little Lord Baby Jesus.
She's great.
So, Jojo is actually a reference to my wife, Joanna, whose nickname is Jojo.
- Is the dog named Jojo? - No, the little girl.
Oh, the girl's named Jojo.
I was like, why would you make a reference to your wife...
Yeah, it was in thanks of all her support
over the three-plus year process of making this movie.
And gave me so much support.
What's the dog named?
- In the movie, it's Ozzy. - Ozzy.
Ozzy the dog.
- This is the dance. - Yes.
When I saw this for the first time, it was a very early screening of the film,
and I loved it so...
- 'Cause I didn't know it was gonna happen. - Yeah.
It's a little non sequitur, but absolutely perfect.
- Who chose the music for this? - That was Jim's pitch.
It was this little, kind of '70s hit,
early '70s I think, by The Poppy Family called "Where Evil Grows."
And Jim pitched it, and it was just so wonderful and weird.
And yeah, it just...
It just worked great.
- Was this in the script, the dance? - This is a great gag,
blowing out the circuit breaker.
- Evil laugh. - Badniks at the top there
on one of the pieces of tape, another Easter egg.
- What's Badniks? - Badniks is what
Robotnik's stuff is referred to as in the original game.
All his little robots.
So, just killing time while the quill gets analyzed.
This is another really cool set.
You're getting to look, by the way, of what that pod's gonna look like.
- Exactly. Yeah, that's the Egg... - That's your first...
Eggpod back there. It's got its engines folded up,
but just love the idea of him having all his stuff with him...
in his mobile lab, and being able to call it up at a moment's notice.
I just thought you might like a latte with steamed Austrian goat milk.
What do I look like, an imbecile?
Of course I want a latte. I love the way you make them!
So abusive, but so perfect together.
Ready the prototype.
So yeah, there it is.
That's a cue for anybody who played the video games,
that's a huge reveal I feel like, right?
Yeah, he had his little Eggmobile,
his little metal sphere he would fly around in,
and that was the inspiration for him creating a little one-man fighter.
So we... did a little design work on it.
I think we came up with something super cool for his Eggpod.
Both you and I have those Genesis Minis.
And I just beat Sonic 1 and Sonic 2 again.
- God, they're so hard, so difficult. - By the way,
so Sonic 1, you can get through it,
then when you get to the last couple rounds, it's impossible.
And Sonic 2, when you get to the airship,
you need the "save" function of this Genesis Mini.
- Every 12 seconds, you need to save. - Yes. But it's...
- It's so hard. - Yeah.
- But so fun. It's where it all started. - It's so good.
- It's where it all started. - It's also because that game is so...
The whole game changes by how fast you're going,
in a side-scroller back then that didn't even exist.
- Yeah. - The speed of it, it's so exciting
and unruly and makes you feel like a rebel.
Like, you're hardly in control of it
- half the time, it's a pinball. - Yeah.
Yeah, you're like, "No, no, no." But it's so fun.
Pinball reference to something that's gonna happen in the movie later.
- People have seen the movie. - Maybe.
If they're listening to this, they've seen it.
You should never start a viewing experience with the commentary.
- With two people talking about... - Ruining the movie for you
at every turn.
That'd be so funny if that's how you watched it.
So stop right now if that's the case
- and switch over to the non-commentary... - After an hour and six minutes.
Yeah.
What year is it? Is The Rock president?
- Yes, I improvised that. - Is the Rock president?
I would vote for The Rock.
And by the way, The Rock saw that in a commercial or something
- and retweeted it. - Yes.
- And made everything full circle. - And talked about playing Sonic.
- As a kid. - In college, yeah.
You got it. I am great at resting.
I rest faster than anybody.
Still talking.
First of all, can we take a moment to acknowledge how under control I've been?
- Amazing. - Didn't freak out.
- No. - Totally calm.
By the way, so Tika is a veterinarian.
- Correct? I'm sorry. - Maddie...
Tika's character, Maddie.
So, that makes it even perfect, yeah,
that she knows how to bring that hedgehog back to life.
- Or at least examine him. - Yes.
So, everybody has a nice little purpose within the story, even more so,
than the relationship and the love between the two of them.
So many beautiful people in one scene.
Am I not in the movie because I'm not that pretty?
Ben.
Well, we'll...
We'll find a way to get you on camera if we're able to do another one.
- I'll be some weird character... - It'll be some doppelgänger.
...that talks like this. Like, a weird talk.
Exactly. Have to discuss your voice.
- Here we go, this is a big moment. - Huge.
There they are.
What was it like designing those?
It was a process. I mean...
You know, you wanna, you wanna...
- I mean, they're iconic. - Well, in the game,
they pretty look like they're made out of metal, at least the soles are
in order to withstand the tremendous friction
generated by the speed of his running,
but we really loved the idea of him getting them from Jojo,
and that it was a gift, and his first gift of real shoes,
not hand-me-downs or mismatched stuff that he'd been wearing in the whole movie.
And to create a real moment out of it.
It's also the first gift he's ever gotten in his life, probably.
Yeah, exactly.
We should say about face stuff, although I was making fun before.
They put black dots on my face and we put a camera on it,
so at the beginning, we did the script many, many times,
we did all the lines,
you could see exactly how my personal face did it,
and then I believe they matched a lot of the emotion to that.
It's definitely great reference, 'cause, I mean,
faces are very complicated things and expressions are very complicated.
Anytime you can have a little bit of reference
to give you an idea of what makes the expression great or work...
you grab it.
You were very patient with us with all those little dots on your face,
- 'cause it looks weird. - We did it three or four times.
Maybe more, four or five. And also you're tethered in by cords
- so you can't go as freely. - Very unnatural.
Yeah. I remember you having neck pain, right?
Yeah, because the weight of the camera...
- We did six-hour recording sessions. - Thank you for your patience.
- Really appreciate it. - And then after we got enough
of the visual stuff, then it was back to how I've done animation stuff
- for the past 15 years of my life. - Right.
And here we are, finally.
- And there's America. - San Francisco.
Now, how much did you film in actual San Francisco?
Well, this is actually... This street scene is still Vancouver.
- Wow. - But we did shoot...
We had an additional plate shoot.
We were fortunate enough to grab a bunch of stuff in San Francisco and...
for the action sequence that is coming up in a bit.
This was a part of the trailers.
This was a big... Or when they get to the elevator.
Gotta get up there fast or we're gonna have a human pancake on our hands.
You came all the way from Montana.
Yeah. That's how serious it is.
He's great.
Okay.
You just saved a life.
Let's push right through that moment.
Sonic in a gym bag.
I love this shot of him just peeking through the little crack in the zipper,
and...
I can't breathe in here.
Hello? Anybody there?
- Do you have your child in that bag? - No.
I mean, yes, it's a child, but it's not mine.
Great line, great look.
It's not your child.
Relax. I'm a cop, okay?
Plus, he likes it in there, don't you, buddy?
Why would I like it in here?
This is worse than the dog cage you had me in earlier.
Such a kidder.
We did a hundred different versions of that.
There's a pattern forming here.
I think we did a lot of versions of everything.
- Yeah. - But you have to. Again, you gotta just...
keep pushing.
I remember I listened to an interview of Jim Carrey
because I think he's amazing.
And he talked about how he likes doing a lot of takes.
This is years ago, so I don't know how different it is,
you know better than I, but he said, "I like to do different takes,
because it's all about what happens at the end.
Why not cover everything you can,
- so in the end, you can choose the best. - You have options.
- Yes. - Yes, absolutely.
In an interview about him, he's like, I do enjoy taking a lot of takes...
If we're thinking about the end result of the film, it's always helpful.
I was, like, "That's kind of amazing."
His little satchel was a necessary little thing we designed
'cause obviously he's got these rings,
and he uses a lot of them over the course of the movie,
but giving him his little pack...
was obviously very...
necessary up front, and to figure out how that would work,
- and it was great. - In the video game or any video game,
- how does any character hold anything? - Where are the coins coming from?
Oh, my goodness.
The thing about the rings, Mario's coins, thinking about...
Zelda has 30... or Link rather...
has 30,000 things in a little tiny satchel bag.
- Right. Yeah, exactly. - And six different shields...
I always thought...
A little more logic that you have to apply
- to something like that. - When you're in the real world.
Yeah.
This is all green screen...
in the back, or are you on top of a building?
It is green screen. We had just a little piece of the building built.
This little outcropping.
Do you have a favorite scene or you can't really say that?
- 'Cause it's calling... - Different... Definitely,
like I was talking about before, the baseball scene,
- in terms of what it represents. - It's great.
It's funny, it's got some great visual effects,
but it also has some real heart to it, and really sets up
the emotion of the movie, and Sonic, just as a character.
But, yeah, there's... And then, obviously, the motel room. I just really love
the Sonic performance and the emotion of that scene as well.
So, it's hard to pick, really.
The emotion in this also, to me, I liked when we were doing this scene,
it was important to me and to you to make sure...
It doesn't matter that he's animated. It shouldn't even feel like he's animated.
It should feel like a little kid is talking to James and Tika right now.
Right.
And then, it'll just bring weight to a lot of the scenes.
And I think the animators pulled it off,
'cause it's one thing if I perform it, but you have to make this character
really look like he's invested in stuff.
Yeah, and have that moment of maturity, right?
- Yes. - 'Cause this is when Sonic realizes
there's all these things he didn't get to do or wasn't going to get to do.
And he wants to do them and stay on Earth,
but he realizes, for the sake of his friends, and for Tom and Maddie,
that would put them in danger and put them at risk and so...
he makes a very selfless decision to go even though he doesn't want to.
And this is our first view of the Eggpod in action.
Now he's got...
- a red suit and the goggles. - And you built this. I saw this.
Yeah, we just built the pod for him to sit in.
It was on a gimbal, and on a green screen.
So we were able to composite it into any environment we needed to.
I was in Vancouver when he was shooting this and it was so cool.
Yeah, this is a really...
This was, I think, the first time we had James, Jim and Tika
all together doing a scene together.
And everyone had some really funny pitches for this dialogue
and make it really...
It's great.
I punched him in the face.
He punched him right in the face! It was awesome!
The time for talking is over! It's time to push buttons.
And here we go. With our first actual reference to Eggman.
Confidence!
A fool's substitute for intelligence.
That's not good.
This is a difficult CG scene.
- There's a lot going on. Lot of elements. - So much going on.
Oh, you're about to see a great Jeff Fowler pitch that I love that he did.
I was not expecting that.
But I was expecting not to expect something, so it doesn't count.
Yeah, the idea of Sonic pushing them off the building
felt very unexpected and fun and kind of the right way to keep going.
This was something we did late in the game.
Not this, sorry. Not the bullet time.
Me going down and going...
was a Fowler pitch that I remember near the end.
- Yeah. - And I was so happy.
Your pitch was so funny.
Well, all this personality that comes out of Sonic
just messing with the stuff and just taking all the time in the world
'cause he's so fast and just showboating, you know,
is really fun and feels very...
-very Sonic-y, -Yes.
Very confident, very in control...
until he's not in control,
because Robotnik has found a way to level the playing field.
But yeah, all of this.
- This part. I love that. - Yeah.
What a great reveal for him to see the big bad.
Right.
So, the only two things that are not...
bullet time.
Now, I see we've dropped back into real time.
- Right. - So he got blasted, Sonic, and then...
He got blasted out of...
- And now, we're into real time. - Right.
Kind of regular speed.
That's our visual effects supervisor, Ged Wright,
that the camera just pushed past.
- Is that true? - Uh-huh. A little cameo.
Hey, that's an Easter egg.
When Sonic gets hurt, all of his rings go like that, and the noise.
Uh-huh.
This is a Back to the Future reference.
Glad you're here. Could use some help.
Old Bessie's about to give birth.
Is that his father?
No, it's a farmer.
- Oh, I thought he said, "Hey, son." - No.
Just a townsperson.
Farmer Zimmer.
- That was Hans Zimmer? - No. Farmer Zimmer.
I can't believe that's Hans Zimmer.
"Bounty hunting is a complicated sport."
That's not Hans Zimmer.
Werner Herzog is in complicated sport, sorry, not Hans Zimmer.
I did a movie called Flora & Ulysses which he was in, in Vancouver.
Small industry.
All right. Now we're off to the races.
Now, you must have had this viz'd like crazy, you know.
Yes, we definitely did previz for this
to figure out what the angles were, what the action was.
So, how much of this is filmed? How much of this is on a crane?
- How much is dollied? - A lot of this was filmed,
and then some of it becomes the reference material
for a 3D version we're just mapping the world
and the buildings onto...
onto objects in 3D space.
And this felt important, to close the loop on our opening scene.
By the way, if you remember, the movie did not start like that,
so for your guys to find those beautiful bookends was great.
Yeah.
And then, coming up, Smash Bros. pose.
- Love it. Another one. - Uh-huh.
And that's alluding to what's about to happen, also.
- Right. The "Visit Paris!" - Yep.
Sonic's got his bag of rings.
Coming through!
And Daniel Day-Lewis played that mime.
It's gotta be fun for Jim to be filming in Canada 'cause he's Canadian.
Oh, absolutely. And everyone in the crew just loved having him there.
- All right. So tell us anything. - This is just...
Everyone was really excited about this early on,
this idea of using the rings to, sort of, hop around the world
and have a chase sequence that's jumping from The Great Wall to the pyramids,
and it just really felt like it had a lot of scope and was very cinematic...
Also using the rings as transport is something taken from the games?
'Cause you jump through the big ring every now and then.
One thing we realized with this sequence in early trailers,
the trail on Robotnik's Eggpod was actually blue
because he's using the power of Sonic's quill,
so they thought, "It would be Sonic power, so it would be blue."
But then, a little down the line, we were, like, "You know what though,
in these wide shots, you just cannot beat red for villainy...
- Yeah, you're right. - ...and for evil,"
so we made that little adjustment,
- and it felt... - It helps you track him, also.
Exactly.
Give it a little differentiation.
Now, this was on an island in Vancouver, right?
- A little off of Vancouver? - Yeah, we shot in a town called Ladysmith,
very charming little town, which was very...
- gracious to host us. - That's a great shot.
I like Vanc... I just filmed a movie over there for three months,
- and I loved it over there. - Mm-hmm.
That's a great city. Really wonderful people and...
beautiful... beautiful...
locations.
...for a litany of invasive exploratory procedures.
Any last words?
Guac. I like that word.
Funny till the end.
I don't have to tell you how many scientific breakthroughs
have been made possible by animal testing.
You're being very selfish.
Going my way?
What the...
They did so much of this, this fight,
- and they did so great. - Really?
Yeah. They really, all this, kind of...
I'm the Donut Lord, you son of a...
We were...
Autopilot, adjust.
Why?
Why would you throw your life away for this thing?
That's why I don't have friends.
Next thing you know, you're somebody's best man.
They want to have the wedding out of town. Like nobody has anything better to do!
That's great.
Oh, yes. You were about to die.
That's our sheriff you're messing with.
Hey, Pally gets a...
- a hero moment. - A hero moment. Uh-huh.
- Crazy Carl. - Yeah, it's the townspeople coming to...
to defend their sheriff.
- Careful. - Just... Just put it away.
Tom?
I don't mean to be indelicate here,
but someone should get some ice, keep the body fresh.
And you originally wanted fart noises to come out of Sonic then, right?
That little alien...
knew more about being human than you ever will.
Here it comes.
This was his home.
And he was my friend.
So this was a place we wanted to get to
- very early on in the writing. - Explain what's happening.
The idea of Sonic finally getting...
the friend that he's been after his whole life, really,
and all this time he's been alone on Earth,
and finally having that, sort of, community...
and it just, sort of, activating this whole new...
power in him.
And we're finally seeing Sonic in full control of his powers. Fully realized.
And is this power from something in the games?
No, I mean, there's certainly,
- there's Super Sonic, but that's not... - Yes.
That's not this, 'cause that would involve
- Chaos Emeralds, obviously. - Right.
So, in the interest of simplicity for this movie...
we didn't include any of that.
It's really meant to just be Sonic understanding his own powers.
And his emotions.
- And now he's got what he needs. - Great.
Time to take care of Robotnik.
- He's at full power, wouldn't you say? - Yeah.
- Confidence. Friends. - Yep.
The whole package.
And we see him strip Robotnik of the quill power he was using.
And this is a reference, too, to a video game.
I've played many a Sonic pinball.
Yeah, this was just,
what can we do to just really create an exciting visual, and just...
So cool.
Now you've done it!
Guess what, Eggman?
I'm not leaving Earth. You are.
It's gotta be a team effort.
It's a movie star.
Yeah, coup de grâce.
Donut Lord was listening to Sonic about the mushroom planet.
- Uh-huh. - Yeah. We've gone on a journey.
Knows all about it.
- I told you, you got this. - Hey, we got this.
So, this being the other moment
we're just really excited to get to which is...
Sonic finally getting his high five.
- I think these belong to you. - Thank you very much.
- No more pushing people off of buildings. - You know I can't promise that.
- You did pretty good, space 'hog. - Thanks, Donut Lord.
You're gonna have to explain this "Donut Lord" thing.
Nope, sorry. That's for me and the little guy. Right?
We got our thing, you got your thing with your... sister.
Oh, my God, my sister.
Gotta go fast.
- Gotta go one more callback. - It's a great cut.
Also, another little Easter egg, "gotta go fast."
Uh-huh. Yeah.
We can never go back there.
I mean, are we?
'Cause it kind of feels like we're home right now.
Really?
I kind of feel like I checked the "save a life" box off my bucket list.
Now all I want to do is spend my life with the people I care about.
- Movies are fun. - They are.
Let me tell you a little something, Jeff. Movies, they're super fun.
All right, everybody. Nothing to see here.
They're fun to make and to watch.
Carl, I'll take that chain saw.
Oh, I love him.
You act like you've never seen a fight
between an intergalactic space rodent
-and a robot with a doctorate -Intergalactic space rodent.
And a robot with a doctorate.
- Hey, another Easter egg. - There we go.
I've heard so many versions of this on YouTube, it's the best.
- It's a classic. Had to include it. - It's the best.
The music in Sonic, the video games, are all unbelievable.
- Fantastic. Yeah. - Unbelievable.
I love video game music.
Mr. and Mrs. Wachowski?
Yes?
A token of appreciation from your government
for keeping quiet about recent incidents which never occurred.
Wow!
- Wonder what it is. - Money to fix the house?
- Letter from the president? - You'll see.
Okay.
- Olive Garden. - Yeah.
The way you said "You'll see" made me think
it was something better than the things we said.
Have you tried their Never Ending Pasta Bowl?
It never ends.
Why did you choose that as Tom's last name?
- Wachowski? - Yep.
I don't think there was a...
a whole lot of reason behind it.
- Oh, really? - It just...
seemed like an appropriate small-town name.
You haven't by any chance been in contact with a certain alien creature
since the incident, have you?
Uncle Sam would love to have a chat with him. Very casual. Brunch, perhaps.
You mean the little blue guy. No.
- No, nothing. No. - Mm-mmm.
- Doubt we'll ever hear from him again. - Mm-mmm.
Very well.
Okay.
- Great look by Tika. - Mm-hmm.
I love this last little bit of him peeking in the door.
It's so stupid.
So, do you guys wanna watch a movie or what?
I've been there the whole time.
Ozzy, the dog, perfectly on cue, the head turned.
How did you get that?
- Pure accident. - Is that true?
Yeah.
I think somebody was shouting instruction at him
from off-camera and he just happened to turn his head, so...
which was great, and we could use it.
So, another moment we just always felt was just really perfect was
to reunite Sonic with all of his stuff. But now he's...
he's got a roof over his head,
and rather than being the outsider looking in the window of the home,
he's in the home.
How did you choose the props and stuff?
It seems like a lot of '90s reference, obviously Flash for the speed.
Yeah. Well, the other thing that seemed like it would make sense
was you don't want Sonic actually stealing,
like, kleptomaniac, stealing stuff directly out of people's hands,
- like, a bunch of current... - Right.
...you know, like sitting there with a tablet and...
- So it's, like, stuff people left behind. - Exactly.
It's, like, secondhand, which also gives it a little more charm.
Where he's just taken stuff people have discarded or don't want.
Race car bed. Perfect.
Yeah.
There is a reference to the Archie comic series there, with the race car bed.
Lots of Easter eggs in there folks, in that room.
- There's a SEGA Genesis. - Yeah, tell 'em that.
Some of these things you're just gonna have to go hunting for.
I think there's...
there's a lot, a lot to cover.
- We did... - But they are there.
I'm warning you. I've got nunchucks!
That Sonic-Ozzy scene just felt right to call back to at the end here,
of him saying "You're Tom's best friend?
I don't see what the big deal is."
Then calling it back for his last line in the film.
And then?
Yes.
Down, but not out.
Robotnik is...
making his way on the mushroom planet.
Agent Stone.
Why don't you get a head start?
He's turning into full Robotnik.
- Even the voice. - Definitely with the mustache, the bald...
Right?
It's an evolution, for sure.
And I think we have more work to do.
But he's definitely getting closer to it...
- In the right direction. - Exactly.
This is all just...
scraps from his Eggpod...
on the back of his backpack there.
And he still has a quill, which looks like maybe now it's...
managed to regenerate a little bit of that energy.
That could be important.
So I had a lot of fun designing
- this mushroom planet and just... - So cool.
...going about as far as we could, and...
just how many mushrooms, how many fungi can we pack...
pack into this thing.
Come on! Cheer up!
There's the little guy, 16-bit.
Directed by Jeff Fowler.
- Jeff, you did an amazing job. - Thanks, man. We had a blast.
Pretty incredible.
- I mean, this is just a dream for me. - Great writers.
Combined three of my favorite things.
It was movies, animation, video games.
I mean, really, it was a dream, and I had such an amazing experience.
I'm so proud of how it came out. You did such a good job.
- I'm so proud to be a part of it. - Thanks, man.
And to be a part of it the way...
I'm very excited that it came out the way it did.
- Thank you, sir. - Also, this end credits is unbelievable.
Oh, yeah.
It just felt kind of perfect to incorporate
some of this imagery from the games that everyone knows and loves,
and to end the movie, have people walk out with just a big smile
- and seeing all this 16-bit greatness. - Editors are amazing, by the way.
Yes, I was so lucky with my entire crew.
All my cast, I mean, everyone was just...
I was about as lucky as you can get with...
all the people involved that made this.
How did you guys decide...
Was it always like, okay, let's bring it back to the bits...
for the end credits or no?
It was definitely a... When we really kind of started...
getting to that point in the schedule where we needed to start working on it
and designing it.
Picture Mill is who we worked with, by the way, who did a fantastic job
realizing all of this, but yeah, it just really, it felt like,
okay, we want to use some 16-bit, but we also wanna,
sort of, visit some of these movie moments
and visualize the movie in the style of the original game.
It just felt like a perfect union.
Oh, wait. There's one more scene. What's this?
What's going on here?
I thought we were done.
I haven't seen the final of this yet. This is very exciting.
Hello.
Tails.
I found him.
I just hope I'm not too late.
So we're very incredibly excited to be able to do this.
And certainly, that was a question we would get asked throughout the process,
are you gonna involve characters like Tails and their fan favorites...
and, well...
We didn't chose to do it for this story, we knew, just knew,
- that we had to kind of allude to... - If there's more telling of this tale.
- Exactly. You have to. - We had to get Sonic right, but now...
we certainly would love the opportunity to build out the world
and bring in some of these other characters
that everybody knows and loves.
Was there always... Was there...
Hey, voice of Sonic!
Hey, Ben Schwartz! Love that guy.
Was there always...
plans to have Tails at the very end of it?
- Yes, you didn't always... Yes. - There was, right?
There was always meant to be an Easter Egg teaser.
'Cause I love that. I love when movies do that and say,
"Hey, we know you love these characters.
Maybe we weren't able to do it in this movie
but we just want you to know that it's coming.
- It's out there. It's part of the world." - Yeah.
- We're taking care of you. - We know.
- Yeah. We got you. - We're just as excited as you are.
That'll be exciting. So now, we have the credits here, obviously.
Please, look and recognize how everything is amazing.
Is there anything we didn't get to talk about?
So many people. It takes so many people
to make these things, really, and...
each and every one of them plays a very special part.
Sonic, being my first movie,
it really opened my eyes to just how many people are involved...
but just what a great community.
What a great experience it is when everyone comes together...
to problem solve, or to create...
solve the problems and create the movie.
It's just fantastic.
Is there anything you didn't get to say while watching that you wanna say now?
Doesn't have to be about this. About anything in the movie,
'cause we only have a minute or so left.
There's probably about five minutes left, actually.
Oh, okay. Well, I've had to pee for like an hour.
Five minutes, I'll explode. It'll be great.
No, I just...
I had such a great time making this. I'm so grateful and thankful
for all the people that helped us do it.
I had wonderful support from all our producers, our studio.
My mentor, Tim Miller, was a big part of getting me this movie and...
I certainly enjoyed a tremendous amount of support from Neil Moritz
and all our friends at Paramount and SEGA,
and I just cannot be happier with the movie we made.
I'm just so excited to get it out there and to share it with audiences.
Tim Miller. If I didn't take that meeting with Tim Miller,
I don't know what'd have happened.
- That's right. - It just happened to be perfect timing.
It was destiny.
Yeah. When I had that meeting, did you know I was coming in?
Did you know you were gonna try to use me?
No, that was the fun of sitting next to him,
because, every now and then, I'd be sitting there at my desk
doing my work, and I'd turn around, and it'd be...
Ben Schwartz, or whoever he happened to be taking a meeting with
- for a project, so it was always... - Yeah.
So if I didn't have that meeting,
there's a chance that I may not have even done it.
- I don't know. - Wow. How crazy.
- We don't even have to answer that. - Or think about it.
- No, we don't even wanna think about that. - No, we don't.
I am very... very proud and very excited
- to be a part of this movie. - Thanks, man.
I'm so excited with how it came out.
I've also watched you as a director from before you started rolling till now,
and because of the VO aspect of it, I'm with you...
I'm in post a lot with you.
And it has been so amazing
-to watch you work, -Thanks, man.
And also keep your cool and also stay creative,
and find ways around anything. You did a great job, and also,
for your first movie, it's pretty magnificent.
Thanks, brother. Movies, you know, they're tough.
It's a long process, but it should be fun.
And just working with people like you,
and just the joy that comes from that creative collaboration,
it's just fantastic, and...
yes, thank you for all you've done for this film
and continue to do promoting it and talking to the fans, and...
the love you have for this character and this franchise
is so real and it's just fantastic.
We're so fortunate to have your help.
- You're very kind. - We're very lucky.
You and I got very lucky that we were able...
And I appreciate you returning my text messages from time to time
when I had a moment, when I'm shooting, when I needed it.
- I needed a laugh... - Of course.
...or needed some insights. So you're a resource, for sure.
Let's make some more of these, huh?
- How many more do you want to do? - Let's start now.
How many more? Let's say, by the way, by the time someone's watching this...
they'll know if the story is continuing. They know more than we know right now.
The movie has not come out yet, but we hope that it is received the way that...
with the amount of love that we put it out.
- Absolutely. - If the audiences can experience
even just a fraction of the joy and fun we had making it,
then I think we'd be in great shape. But...
fingers crossed.
Well, Jeff, you're a wonderful human.
Now with child.
That was the other wonderful thing that happened this year.
Throughout this process, you had a kid.
- I did. - And you named the kid Sonic.
True dedication.
- Yeah. - I'll have it changed later,
but it felt good for the crew and morale.
It had to be, yeah.
- Guys, I had a child, I had a son. - Boy Sonic...
I named him Sonic.
Let's finish this movie.
- Yeah. - And make it great.
And it worked.
It absolutely worked.
Thank you, Paramount. Thank you, Toby.
Thank you, Neil. Thank you, Jeff.
- Look at how long... - There's so many people to thank.
Is there another thing at the very end? No.
We're done. This is it.
Unless I'm forgetting something.
What if they've added something you have no idea about at the very end?
You finished your color timing, you finished your sound,
and then you get there and at the very end,
it's the weirdest thing you did not say "yes" to.
That would be wild.
Canada.
- Thanks everybody for listening. - Very thankful to them.
- Yeah. - Jeff, any final words?
Hope you enjoyed the film and thanks for listening, and...
yeah, we'll catch you later.
Bye, everyone.
See ya.