Sonic the Hedgehog franchise producer Toby Ascher says the ongoing film series is building up to “Avengers-level events.”
Speaking with Paste Magazine, Ascher teased what the future has in store for the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise.
“We got really excited about the idea of expanding our characters in our world into television, specifically, because it gives us a platform to really do character studies,” he explains. “We knew that, with Shadow coming into Sonic 3 and some of the bigger things that we want to do, the Sonic franchise on the movie side is going to be these Avengers-level events. They’re going to be these big, exciting stories that have a lot of different characters. And so what television did for us is it gave us time to go into some of the more supporting characters in depth and really build them out in cool ways.”
What comes next for the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise?
The first Sonic live-action movie was released in 2020. Ben Schwartz voiced the titular Hedgehog, while Jim Carrey played Dr. Robotnik and James Marsden played Tom Wachowski. A sequel, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, followed in 2022 and introduced Idris Elba as the voice of Knuckles.
A Knuckles spin-off television series is now scheduled to release on Paramount+ on April 26, 2024. Consisting of six episodes, the series follows Knuckles as “he agrees to train Wade (Adam Pally) as his protégé and teach him the ways of the Echidna warrior,” according to the official synopsis.
“We thought we could translate that into a full series,” Ascher said of Knuckles. “I think it’s by far the funniest version we’ve had in any of the Sonic movies so far. It leans into weird comedy partially because of Adam Pally and because of what Idris brings in a really great way.”
Sonic the Hedgehog 3, meanwhile will introduce Shadow the Hedgehog into the film franchise. The film is currently set to release in United States theaters on December 20, 2024.
