Perhaps unsurprisingly, given how far out both projects still appear to be, details remain relatively scant beyond their official announcement; there’s one bit of major news, however, with Paramount Pictures confirming Idris Elba - who’s set to makes his debut as Knuckles in the second Sonic movie - will be reprising his role as the cocky echidna in the live-action television show, said to be airing on Paramount Plus. “We’ve got a remarkable partnership with Paramount,” Sega CEO Haruki Satomi said in a statement confirming the new Sonic projects’ active development, “and we are excited to continue expanding the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise with them”. Before all that, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 - which sees the return of Jim Carey as Dr. Robotnik and and Ben Schwartz as Sonic the Hedgehog - arrives in cinemas this April in the UK. Elba’s Knuckles isn’t the only fan-favourite character taking centerstage this time around either, with Miles “Tails” Prower (played by Colleen O’Shaughnessey) also getting more screen time following his brief appearance at the end of the first film. All in all, 2022 looks like it’ll be another busy year for Sonic; alongside his next cinematic adventure and preparations for the live-action escapades to come, there’s also the not-insignificant matter of Sonic Frontiers - Sonic Team’s open-world take on the hedgehog’s classic high-speed video game formula, coming to Switch, Xbox, PlayStation, and PC later this year.
