Sonic the Hedgehog sequel officially in the works
The little blue guy was such a success he's back for round two.
- Best New Journalist 2019 Australian IT Journalism Awards
The first Sonic was a bundle of fun.
Before the coronavirus pandemic shuttered theaters in March, Sonic the Hedgehog raced into its February release and collected enough ticket sales to score a sequel.
Paramount Pictures and Sega Sammy confirmed to Variety on Thursday that work on the sequel is already underway, with Jeff Fowler back to direct, along with Pat Casey and Josh Miller to pen the script. (Editors' note: Paramount Pictures is owned by ViacomCBS, which also publishes CNET.)
No confirmation yet on whether Ben Schwartz will return to voice the extraterrestrial blue hedgehog, along with Jim Carrey as the evil Dr. Robotnik (he was left in a tricky position at the end of the first movie) and James Marsden as Sonic's best bud, Sheriff Tom Wachowski.
While Sonic got off to a rocky start with a poor (read: disgusted) reception to its titular hero's design, Paramount and Fowler heard the feedback and delayed the film from its original November release to give the animators enough time to turn Sonic into a version more faithful to the Sega video game.
The movie went on to become the No. 1 grossing video game-to-movie adaptation, with a $58 million opening, pipping Detective Pikachu's $54 million.
While reviews weren't exactly rave, CNET's Sean Keane had a lot of fun and praised the visuals and relationship between Tom and Sonic.
Despite no cast confirmations, Schwartz responded to the news on Twitter:
— Ben Schwartz (@rejectedjokes) May 28, 2020
Fowler also tweeted his excitement: "ROUND TWO WITH THE BLUE!!"
ROUND TWO WITH THE BLUE!! 🤟💙https://t.co/YTabuZy08C
— Jeff Fowler (@fowltown) May 28, 2020
