After finding box office success, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 arrives on digital May 24, and io9 has an exclusive clip from the special features to share. James Marsden, Tika Sumpter, and other stars discuss the production process for the sequel—with high praise especially for director Jeff Fowler.
“The first movie was me and Sonic—or, me and a tennis ball,” Marsden says in the behind-the-scenes clip. “This time around, I get to act with more humans, which is kind of nice.” Lee Madjoub, who plays Agent Stone—sidekick to Jim Carrey’s Dr. Robotnik—notes that the tennis ball was still a factor, but there was also a “life-sized model” (literally a Sonic statue the size he appears in the film, complete with sneakers) on set to help guide the performances.
As you’ll see in the clip, Fowler has some unusual props for Marsden, who he says excels at something that actors in our current CG-character-laden times need to have in their skill set: “James has such a great sense of performing with characters that don’t exist. You have to have such a great imagination as a performer who just knows how to do it and do it great.”
Most of the praise in this clip, however, is reserved for Fowler, whose co-workers appreciated his ability to keep a potentially chaotic set like Sonic the Hedgehog 2 running in an orderly and even fun fashion. “Jeff Fowler is one of the calmest directors I have ever worked with,” Sumpter says. “He’s doing such a huge movie with so many moving parts, he’s like the steady ship among everything. And his calm makes us calm, and more confident.”
See the rest of the special features—and revisit the film, too, which already has another sequel and a spinoff on the way—when Sonic the Hedgehog 2 speeds to digital tomorrow, May 24; it then hits 4K, Blu-ray, and DVD on August 9.
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