Looking at the original trailer for the live-action Sonic the Hedgehog movie is like looking into a portal to a different timeline, one where the film itself likely doesn’t herald the arrival of a massively successful film franchise that eventually spawns a bad Paramount+ spin-off. At best, it results in a Morbius-level hate-watch campaign and goes down in history as a great affront to the titular blue blur.
While this came as a relief to both Sonic fans and the innocent bystanders who would be subjected to this monstrosity on marketing signage every time they went to a theater, it spurred other conversations around creatives being “forced” to make changes based on fan outcry , as well as conspiracy theories that the entire thing was a marketing ploy designed to generate buzz around the film.