It seems that the upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog movie has its lead actor, as Variety has reported that James Marsden has been tapped to play the protagonist of the Blue Blur's first live-action cinematic outing.

Sonic the Hedgehog is an upcoming movie that plans to blend live-action and animation in order to tell the story of one of gaming's most iconic mascots. We know almost nothing about the story of the movie so far, as it only just entered production.

The upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog film is set to be directed by Jeff Fowler, who has previously directed Gopher Broke and worked on the 2009 version of Where the Wild Things Are. The film is a co-production between Paramount, Sega of America, and Marza Animation Planet, which is a company that has a lot of experience working with the Sonic the Hedgehog video games.

The decision to use a mixture of live-action and animated footage is an odd one, considering the fact that the world of Sonic the Hedgehog is mostly filled with talking animals. They can't be saving that much money by including live-action elements unless they plan on James Marsden's character being someone from the real world who is dragged into Sonic's world, which means that they would be remaking the terrible Super Mario Bros. movie at that point.

James Marsden is best-known for playing Cyclops in the X-Men movies. He has since been successful in several big TV shows, such as playing Liz Lemon's love interest in 30 Rock and appearing in Westworld. 

There has already been a Sonic the Hedgehog animated movie, released straight to video in 1996. This film isn't highly regarded, as it indulges in a lot of the creepy behavior that has come to cloud the Sonic fanbase, such as including scenes where Tails accidentally grabs the chest of the female lead and Sonic accidentally looking up her skirt at one point in the movie.

Sonic the Hedgehog is not the only upcoming video game adaptation that mixes live-action and animation, as the Detective Pikachu film is attempting to do the same thing.

Sonic the Hedgehog is due to be released in 2019.

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