The Sonic the Hedgehog films have done incredibly well for Paramount Pictures, but the franchise might soon be heading for oversaturation. In an interview with Paste Magazine, franchise producer Toby Ascher spoke about how the Knuckles streaming series came to be and how spin-offs will help bolster the main movies to feel bigger. In his words, he would like the main films to be “Avengers-level” events.
“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,” Ascher said. “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.”
While longtime series fans might be fine with Sonic overload, Ascher’s words don’t instill confidence in me. At the same time, Paramount did not rush out to capitalize on some mega-trend like other movie studios, so there is a chance that Sonic might be able to curtail fan interest to the point that new installments are massive events. It helps that there aren’t 15,000 Sonic movies in a single year, too.
I don’t feel so good Mr. Sonic…
As for the Knuckles series, it appears as if the plot won’t directly impact Sonic 3, but it will build out Knuckles’ personality more. “So what television did for us,” Ascher explains, “is it gave us time to go into some of the more supporting characters in depth and really build them out in cool ways.” That is interesting, but I hope it doesn’t mean Knuckles is mostly an afterthought in the films.
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is scheduled to hit theaters on December 20, 2024. Knuckles will begin airing on Paramount+ starting April 26.
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Written by Peter Glagowski
Peter has been a freelance gaming and film critic for over seven years. His passion for Nintendo is only matched by the size of his collection.
