Fandrum - Where the fans are heard

Studio-backed, big-budget productions have always had, and possibly favored, an unsophisticated give and take with its audience — we deliver content, you pay. Films would either flop, make their money back, or make bank and like votes in a democracy, the general audience recorded their approval in ticket sales.

The relationship between productions of this nature and their audience has held fast to this basic principle through the decades. Television sparked a metamorphosis of filmed content; which had so far been restricted by the physical limitations and economic considerations of the cinema. Feature-length movies were scheduled alongside talk shows and series’ and sometimes around news bulletins.

The 24-hour availability of content that TV offered was then topped by play-on-demand streaming platforms that added the option of choosing what content to watch to the 24-hour availability. Yet the fans — those among the audience of movies and franchises who find a profound connection to the content, and actively seek out related news, discussion threads, merchandise, and the like, manifesting in real-life economic impact and possibly, cosplays — continue to play the one-dimensional role of the consumer.

Parallel to the development of these new mediums, the advent of the internet also saw the rise of independent creators, most notably, on YouTube. PewDiePie might not make it to the average person’s list of household names, but that inevitability is only a generation of boomers away. Pewdiepie and many other creators have cultivated their very own online ecosystems, where fans not only sustain viewership but also directly drive content through submissions in dedicated subreddits. Social media enables creators to involve fans in decisions pertaining to the release of new merch and also discover fan artists who are more than willing to collaborate on merch.

Then perhaps, at the cusp of these two extremes is the concept of ‘fan service’. Fan service refers to marked changes and additions made to the content, in the process of its creation, that are aimed purely at pleasing the fans, often to the detriment of the quality of the content. The term originated in Japan, where financially strung manga studios injected increasingly raunchy imagery to their publications to increase sales.

However, what is possibly the greatest display of fan service the internet age has witnessed has been the ongoing Sonic the Hedgehog movie saga. The original trailer, released on April 30, 2019, featured a Sonic character design that was met with derisive outcry. Fans devoted to the franchise since its inception as a video game in the ’90s had little appreciation for the new look', which retained some of the character’s original cartoonish features while giving it human-like proportions, resulting in a look that was neither of the two, but instead, creepy.

Paramount Pictures, the studio behind the project, delayed the movie release to February 2020 and began rework on the Sonic design, adding $5 million to the movie’s budget. The new design, as revealed in the updated trailer, released on 12 November, has been met with universal approval.

However, the impact is yet to be seen, i.e., profits.

Source: Paramount Pictures

Whether Sonic the Hedgehog benefits from the design change or it only makes a marginal difference to projected earnings remains to be seen. While the variables involved are too numerous for any conclusive findings to be based on this single experiment.

The incident serves as a landmark case for the shifting of the one-dimensional dynamic between production houses and fans. In an era where larger-than-life IPs — from Marvel and DC to Sega and Nintendo — seek to evolve with the times, growth depends on meaningful fan engagement that the technology of today could make possible.

After all, it is the collective millions of likes, comments, follows, ticket sales, and subscribes lavished by living, breathing fans, spread across the globe that gives relevance to all of these IPs. This is the future. The fans shall be heard!

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not in any way represent the views of exchange4media.com