With Sonic the Hedgehog leaping from the small screen to the big one and spawning TV series spin-offs devoted to specific characters (looking at you, Knuckles), executive producer Toby Ascher has said the film franchise will grow to Avengers-level proportions.
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Speaking to Paste Magazine on April 5, Ascher discussed creating the six-episode Paramount+ miniseries starring the fiery echidna, Knuckles. Aptly titled Knuckles, the series kicks off on April 26 with actor Idris Elba voicing the eponymous mammal as he trains deputy sheriff Wade Whipple (Adam Pally) to be an echidna warrior. Ascher explained that following the success of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and the upcoming release of Sonic the Hedgehog 3, the goal for the film franchise is to give characters enough screen time that they’ll eventually reach Avengers-level status.
“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. 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.”
This is both exciting and terrifying. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is great because characters get plenty of screen time to explore their stories and worlds. At the same time, though, because the MCU extends to film and TV, you often have to watch the many connected shows to get a fuller understanding of the movies. If Sonic the Hedgehog as a film franchise seeks to enter its Avengers era, then I fear the same thing could happen. Maybe, for instance, you’ll need to watch every episode of Knuckles to better appreciate the storytelling in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 when that hits theaters on December 20. Only time will tell whether that ends up being the case. For now, maybe we can see this as simply a chance to grow better acquainted with these characters. Hell, I’ll take that, especially if it means Shadow gets more screen time.
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That’s all future thinking, though. At the present, we’ve got Knuckles to look forward to. Ascher spoke to Paste Magazine more specifically about this miniseries, too, saying the show should hit the same level of quality as Sonic the Hedgehog 2.
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