Sonic the Hedgehog movie delayed "to make Sonic just right" so probably with less freaky teeth

The Sonic the Hedgehog movie's making a whole new hog and a delay will give the artists time to make it happen. Director Jeff Fowler revealed on his Twitter account that the upcoming video game movie is now scheduled to arrive on February 14, 2020, just over a three-month delay from its original release date of November 8, 2019. Sonic's new look is under wraps for now, but you can extract a few clues from the image Fowler used to make the announcement.

The image has two main elements to focus on. First, the front-and-center placement of the old-school Sonic head silhouette on the sign. That's full-on early '90s cartoon hedgehog, back before the Sonic Adventure attitude era gave him sharper edges and longer spikes. Granted, that silhouette's an icon for the Sonic series as a whole and it may not indicate what he'll look like in the film.

Second, check out the gloved hand and noodly arm holding the sign. The original design for Movie Sonic got rid of those funny-animal-trademark white gloves and gave him a distressingly well-muscled body so this is a big change. The arm looks closer to his video game forms, though purists will note that Sonic usually has bare arms (like he's wearing a furry blue jumpsuit with holes for his arms, belly, and face). Sonic from the Sonic Boom games and cartoon has blue arms, so maybe the new movie design will draw from that lanky weirdo too.

Equally important is the extra-long hashtag Fowler included with the Tweet. After the internet excoriation led him to promise a new look for Sonic, labor-minded folks feared it would mean extended crunch time for the visual effects artists who would have to rebuild the film's main character in about six months. An extra three months won't make creating a new, fan-pleasing Sonic design for the entire film any smaller of a task, but it should make it more manageable.

Maybe this delay will give the Sonic the Hedgehog movie a better shot at cracking our list of the best video game movies. While we wait to find out, check out our video breakdown of what's coming to games and entertainment next week.