“Superman is still voicing Sephiroth” says many on the internet regarding Tyler Hoechlin’s new role as Sephiroth in the Final Fantasy 7 Remake, but the question is, why does it matter if Superman is still voicing Sephiroth? The answer is simple: Tyler Hoechlin is being advertised as Superman for his up-and-coming show on the CW and George Newbern, Sephiroth’s 15-year voice actor, is taking the hit.
Newbern has been involved with every FF7-related project since 2006, and the most up to date releases Dissidia NT and Mobius, released only just last year. Newbern is also famous for Superman, starting with the 2001 Justice League animated series. Newbern continues to be involved with Superman in animated movies such as Superman vs the Elite, Justice League vs the Fatal Five, and the recent Injustice game series.
Hoechlin started with Superman in Supergirl, CW’s Arrowverse show, appearing in 5 episodes out of the 109 episode television series and also appeared in The CW’s Arrow and The Flash for one episode in each show. Hoechlin even admitted that after Teen Wolf ended, he was asked to join Supergirl without ever having to audition. https://ew.com/article/2016/09/02/supergirl-tyler-hoechlin-superman-2/
Is that enough to call Hoechlin Superman? Well, it will be when The CW releases their new Superman show staring Tyler Hoechlin: https://deadline.com/2019/10/superman-lois-tv-series-tyler-hoechlin-elizabeth-tulloch-star-development-the-cw-1202770637/
It seems The CW is jumping on this opportunity to replace George Newbern, with another Superman actor, Tyler Hoechlin, as Sephiroth to better promote Hoechlin for his new show – which is where the “Superman is still voicing Sephiroth” propaganda is coming from. This is all done in hopes to hype the internet for Hoechlin’s new show and secure viewership from the fans of Final Fantasy.
It’s blanket advertisement, hence the aggressive push for Hoechlin as Superman. What is key about the CW is it is actually owned by both CBS and Warner Brothers, and CBS (now known as ViacomCBS) has a stake in Final Fantasy 7 Remake.
Back in 2005, Sumner Redstone, the owner of both CBS and Viacom (newly merged into ViacomCBS since August 2019), stated video games are excellent advertisement space for product placement. Redstone’s motivation for this led him to purchase Midway Games.
Viacom later purchased game developer Harmonix, a business decision that was short-lived and ended in financial trouble for Viacom.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/24/business/media/24viacom.html
What better to advertise a new television series by using the actors in Triple A games, even if it means uprooting an entire cast that loved and cherished these characters.
What is critical about the newly merged ViacomCBS is, all the new voice actors for the Final Fantasy 7 Remake shown thus far actually come from ViacomCBS productions. Yes, every single one of them – this cannot be a mere coincidence.
Cody Christian (Cloud Strife’s new VA), and Hoechlin all come from Teen Wolf, an MTV (Viacom owned) production along with CW productions (All American for Christian, and Supergirl for Hoechlin). Britt Baron and Briana White both appeared in Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders, a CBS production, and John Eric Bentley has appeared in DreamWorks productions along with Insomniac’s Spider-Man, a Sony PlayStation Exclusive. All the new actors were played up in the released cast list for those respective shows, all CBS and Viacom productions.
Matt Jones is famously known for his role as Badger in Breaking Bad, a Sony Pictures television series. It is quite obvious that Gideon Emery and Erica Lindbeck were already voicing Biggs and Jessie back in 2015, they were most likely only safe from elimination due to Emery’s work on Teen Wolf and Lindbeck’s work on Insomniac’s Spider-man, a Playstation exclusive, which Bentley also appeared in. (Insomniac was also recently acquired by Sony as a first party developer.)
At least Final Fantasy 7 Remake isn’t a PS4 exclusive or else that would be really shady….oh wait, it is. That’s right, Sony has their hands in the Final Fantasy 7 Remake as it is an exclusive title to the PlayStation 4, and since Sony also has a film industry (Sony Pictures), Sony has very close ties with ViacomCBS through Paramount Pictures, and also Square Enix (Live Action Final Fantasy XIV Television Series in progress). Not to mention, Sony and Square Enix have been close since Final Fantasy 7 was released back in 1997 as Sony was the company that handled the North America and European release of the game (known as Sony Computer Entertainment at that time).
So what is really going on here with the casting change? Why doesn’t any of the Advent Children/ Compilation voice actors know why they were replaced? Newbern said the only thing he was told concerning the recast was that they are recasting but can allegedly return other projects. He is not allowed to be in the Remake.
Why is he not allowed to be in the Remake? Who is blocking him and why? And why is it that all video game publications have refused to mention the English FF7 Compilation voice actors by name? Even Johnathan Dornbush, an IGN reporter, only expressed disappointment that Lance Bass (who was only involved with the first Kingdom Hearts as Sephiroth as battle voices) was not returning for the Remake? Not Sephiroth’s longest and most well-known English voice actor, George Newbern.
It appears the entire 15-17 year cast has been blocked from the Final Fantasy 7 Remake for unknown reasons, which are being kept a deliberate secret thus far, but with this new information on Hoechlin’s Superman show, it is becoming more and more obvious that the Final Fantasy 7 Remake is actually an advertising platform for Sony and ViacomCBS for their own actors and projects.
Is this a good reason to replace an entire cast? Let us know in the comments what you think!
Operation Reunion 