Sonic the Hedgehog films aiming to be "Avengers-level events", says franchise producer

The Sonic the Hedgehog films are aiming to be "Avengers-level events".

That's according to Sonic franchise producer Toby Ascher, who spoke to Paste about the decision to create the forthcoming Knuckles TV show spin-off, starring Idris Elba.

"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 said.

Knuckles Series | Official Trailer | Paramount+

"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."

That structure - of single-character spin-offs leading to a major film event - certainly makes sense, though it does beg the question: who else may receive a TV show? Could we see a focus on Shadow? Will Amy make an appearance? Cream the Rabbit?!

While the Sonic 2 film introduced Knuckles (inspired by the Sonic 3 game), the Sonic 3 film is clearly inspired by Sonic Adventure 2.

"We also really, really liked the idea of going linearly through the games, and then in the third movie, being able to do a Sonic 3 and Knuckles super Easter egg," said Ascher, referring to the Sonic & Knuckles + Sonic the Hedgehog 3 sequel.

Further, Ascher promised a continuation in Knuckles of the fish out of water humour found in the Sonic 2 film. "We thought we could translate that into a full series," he said. "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."

As for the future? "If something is working really successfully, and we have a really great story to tell, we're definitely going to expand on it," said Ascher. "I don't think there's any closed doors on future television, future seasons of Knuckles, so everything is wide open. I think it's important to us that we're not just making stuff to make stuff."

The six-episode Knuckles TV show premieres on Paramount+ on 26th April in the US, with additional territories following the next day. Then, the Sonic 3 film will be released on 20th December.

Ahead of that, Sega is remastering 2011's Sonic Generations as Sonic x Shadow Generations for release in autumn across PlayStation and Xbox consoles, Switch, and PC (Steam and Epic).