Sega Europe president Gary Dale believes that, when it comes to movie adaptations of games, the studio should be allowed to do their thing without too much intervention from the game publisher.
Speaking to gamesindustry.biz during E3, Dale spoke about the upcoming movie based on Sega’s famous blue blur, saying that the film is a collaborative process, and that making the best version of the film possible means acknowledging that each team involved has unique skills. “Obviously we have a very deep knowledge of the character and the brand. [Paramount] has a very deep knowledge of how to make movies. The trick is just to bring those two skillsets together to make the best film we can.”
Back in May, the Sonic the Hedgehog movie was delayed until February 2020 to give the filmmakers more time to work on Sonic’s design, which was met with ridicule when the first trailer debuted. Dale spoke to this too, asserting his trust in Paramount. “To be fair, Paramount has been open to listening to feedback from the community around Sonic, which of course has got such a tremendously loyal fanbase with people with very specific views of who Sonic is, how Sonic should behave, how Sonic should look.”
Dale stated that trying to control Paramount, and to try and assert their own vision too much, “would be the wrong approach”, even if Paramount needs to “take into account (their) views on Sonic” to craft the ideal Sonic movie. “I look at the success of game franchises in film and it’s very mixed,” he says. “The idea that games makers can control the process and create great movies… I don’t know if that’s true or not.”
It’s been a decent year for video game adaptations on the big screen, with Detective Pikachu earning solid reviews and lots of money, while this week’s The Angry Birds Movie 2 is currently reviewing better than any previous game based on a movie.
