Originally Posted by
Personamanx
Assuming they're taking into account the man power required to finish the film, I doubt any re-designs will be all that drastic. If they're hoping to preserve the majority of the animation that already exists (at this point most of it has already been completed) they won't be adjusting the character model's proportions at all. If they adjust his body shape/proportions it would likely destroy the character rigs. If they have to do too much damage control on the rigs, much of the animation won't be salvageable. Re-animating an almost completed film will either require the release date to be pushed back, or for many additional artists to be brought onto the team last minute.
Realistically what's going to happen is a dramatic change in hair/fur effects, and texture. That wouldn't affect much of the existing animation, and only require rendering the new effects. It is unlikely that most of the film has begun final renders. That's not to diminish the work of hair/fur artists of course. They have the most technically frustrating job in CGI. But it's the difference between a small team of technical artists working overtime, and hundreds of animators.
Assuming that Sonic does appear in the majority of the movie's shots anyway. If he's only prominently featured for a third of the shots in a 90-ish minute long film it might not be that problematic to: re-design, re-model, re-rig, re-animate, and re-texture the film by the current release date.
But then there's the conspiracy theory going around that Sonic was re-designed months ago after the leaked promotional images received a poor reception. They put out a trailer knowing the reaction will be bad as it will take over social media for a few days. That's a lot of publicity when you plan to announce a re-design shortly after.