‘Gotta Go FaaaaaAAAAAAaaaaaAAASSSSTTT!’ Fans of Parks and Recreation will be excited to learn that Ben Schwartz, famous for playing edgy entrepreneur Jean Ralphio Saperstein in the US TV sitcom, has been cast as the voice actor for Sonic the Hedgehog in the upcoming Hollywood movie.
Schwartz will be lending his voice acting talents to a film that will also star James Marsden, Tika Sumpter and Jim Carrey, according to Variety. Shortly after the publication went to press, Schwartz confirmed it on Twitter.
I. LOVE. 90S. BLUE. ICONIC. CHARACTERS. I am beyond excited about this movie. It’s gonna be amazing. I have been training by running, wagging my finger and impatiently tapping my foot. GOTTA GO FAST! https://t.co/SOYqgnf3ym
— Ben Schwartz (@rejectedjokes) August 9, 2018
As well as playing Jean Ralphio, Schwartz is more recently known for dipping into other VA roles, assuming the voice of Dewey Duck in ‘Disney’s DuckTales’ and Leonardo in ‘Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’. Guess he likes blue characters! But we’re keen to see how he plays the role of the iconic blue blur, so look out for more news as we get it.
The Sonic the Hedgehog movie is due out in November of 2019.
I didn’t know you could be type-cast as someone who plays “the blue one” in everything.
Sonic, Dewey and Leonardo.
…I didn’t know someone could be type-cast as “the blue one”.
This is exciting news to me! Ben does a great job voicing both Dewey and Leo! I can already tell he’s gonna nail Sonic down! And even though it’s a movie, I hope he replaces Roger C. Smith as Sonic’s voice actor for the mainline games. Not hating on him but it’s been 8 years since he’s voiced Sonic and it’s at that time where they get replaced by new actors.
Though Roger can still voice the Boom Sonic since he does an amazing job with that show.
….. It’s been 8 years???? What?? The hell did the time go??
That choice ultimately comes down to Roger himself. Let’s not forget, Mike Pollock could have left with the rest of the 4Kids cast, but he renewed his contract and kept going.
Roger seems to enioy voicing Sonic, so he could very well do the same.
…That “choice” ultimately has nothing to do with Roger or ANY of the actors. The 4kids cast didn’t “leave”, nor did the Sonic Adventure cast before them; Sega CHOSE to replace both of those casts with the next for their own reasons. The actors have zero say in any of that. Mike Pollock was kept on Eggman because he just-so-happened to get a re-audition for the character for when the next cast-change occurred and re-booked the character.
All of that said, the cast we have for the current games is, as far as I’m concerned, the best we’ve ever had. I sincerely hope they DON’T replace them for the video games and just keep the movie cast to the movie.
He seems to be a fitting choice for Movie Sonic.
For me this is bad news, he makes Dewey so annoying and he doesn’t even sound like a kid either, sounds like a over 30’s guy trying to be young.
Shall see how his Sonic turns out but most likely its going to be his same voice being loud and in your face.
Would have been better to get a voice from the games or even Jaleel , so us fans actually have something to connect to, sorta like Peter Cullen voicing Prime.
Also may I point out I’m seeing a lot of dislike towards Roger Craig Smith on the youtube videos that talk about this news, it’s all in the videos comments.
where did this sudden dislike towards Roger come from!?
Um…what rock have you been hiding under?
There has been hate for Roger ever since he replaced Jason Griffith, ever since that Alton Towers clip was released. The poor dude never got a break right up until Colors, where folks started to warm up to him…ok by “folks” I mean the general public, new Sonic fans and Sonic fans with a lick of common sense (which is a rare trait in this fan base).
Everyone else had either learn to tolerate him in order to enjoy the games or continued stewing in their perpetual saltiness to no purpose. By Sonic Boom, Roger gathered a fanbase enough that entrenched him to a small corner of the franchise, and thus the subject was quickly relegated to the cycle of “Who is the better VA” circle jerks that constantly appear on forums. And only the most vocal of minority parties have such a problem with Roger that they’ll raise stink over it.
It;s just now, with Roger being replaced by Ben Schwarz for a big Hollywood project, the haters rose up from whatever pit they where hiding and trying to stoke the flames of debate once again.
When I heard Sonic at the end of an Alton Towers TV advert years ago, I thought it was a random person doing a bad Sonic impression. I didn’t know it was actually Sonic’s new voice actor, Roger Craig Smith, at the time.
Smith started sounding better as Sonic in Sonic Colours.
While Roger isn’t the greatest voice of Sonic, it really has to do with the series declining in quality when the new voice actors debuted. Colors was solid, but it was clearly lacking in scale and overall 3D gameplay compared to Unleashed. Then came Lost World and the infamous Boom. Roger simply came aboard when the series was at its worst (before you say Shadow and 06 were worse, those games sold through the roof compared to Lost World and the Boom titles). Also, Roger’s performance combined with his scripts (written by writers with little knowledge of Sonic) made Sonic seem like a completely different character to long-time Sonic fans.
Not forgetting Generations which like Colors is also a solid title, but in terms of story, had the absolute bare minimum to thread the game together.
-sk72 It started with Spax3’s hatred for Jason Griffith and made petitions to get Ryan Drummond back. Why do these Toxic Sonic Fanboys care about Voice Actors in a Video Game where Gameplay and Level Design
I’m happy that Ben Schwartz is voicing Sonic in the 2019 movie; I liked him as Randy in Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja.
I don’t mind Ben but all these Haters,Fanboys will bash him if Ben replacing Roger
There has been no sudden hate for Roger and the dislike towards him as a voice for Sonic is by no means a vocal minority. People often times say these things to throw shade at the people that disagree with them in order to make the people that don’t like what they like “haters” and therefore the enemy when talking about the topic in question. At least half of the existing Sonic fanbase doesn’t like Roger as Sonic myself included. This isn’t a bad thing nor is this meant to be insulting to Roger, I don’t understand why people think that just because you don’t like the voice of a fictional character that automatically means you hate the voice actor or are belittling their work. The simple fact is Sonic doesn’t sound like the Sonic many of us grew up with. For a few it seems to be the writing itself which is definitely a problem but I think it also stems from just Rogers voice period. It just isn’t the kind of voice that works for the character in my opinion and many many others feel the same way. Sometimes its a matter of casting that makes a voice sound wrong to people, something that has nothing to do with hard work and talent. You can’t help that kind of thing. I personally don’t care for just about all the voices for Sonic right now.
Tails sounds like a generic smarty kid you see all the time in cartoons these days, Knuckles is still a chummy dumbo that I still can’t take seriously, Amy just sounds……eh she doesn’t sound like Minny Mouse as much now but she isn’t the kind of voice I think about when looking at Amy as a character. Shadow just sounds wrong, but everyone else is ok. I don’t really like the main cast in general I guess. To me the characters don’t really feel like their characters but generic versions of themselves that’s more conforming to crappy TV kids shows you see today. They have no personality anymore they’re just there. Anyways this is my opinion and it may seem like I’m nitpicking but honestly this matters a lot to me. This movie will probably not be very good but oh well. I’ll see it anyways