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Sonic the Hedghog 3 is taking the world by storm, with fans and critics alike praising the trilogy-ender as possibly the franchise's best installment yet. Sonic (Ben Schwartz) and Shadow's (Keanu Reeves) crowd-pleasing story is already proving to be a big win for Paramount and SEGA, and that success is already promising bigger and better things for the series. On the very day that the third film released, Paramount announced that Sonic the Hedgehog 4 is officially in development, set to debut in 2027.
Having already sung the praises of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 in my review of the film, we at Collider recently had the spectacular opportunity to speak with two of the biggest players in the ongoing Sonic saga, those being writers Pat Casey and Josh Miller. Casey and Miller took the time to discuss how the franchise has grown into a major blockbuster series as well as write for A-list stars like Keanu Reeves and Jim Carrey. Additionally, the acclaimed duo also discussed what's next for them, including the next chapter in Sonic the Hedgehog 4, the anticipated holiday action sequel Violent Night 2, and their next game adaptation It Takes Two.
Josh Miller and Pat Casey Describe the First Movie's 'Sonic' Redesign as "An Interesting Miracle"
COLLIDER: First off, congrats on the movie. It's an absolute blast. I absolutely loved it, and probably my favorite of the three so far, and it seems a lot of people are agreeing, given that Sonic 4 has already been greenlit. My first question is, was there ever a sense that the sonic movies would become as big and as popular as they have become?
JOSH MILLER: Yeah. I mean, you know, on the first one, you're just trying to get that movie made, hoping people will like it. I mean, we thought it was good, and we knew, obviously the Sonic franchise before the movies had been around for decades, so clearly there’s staying power in the characters of Sonic but, yeah, I don't think any of us necessarily could have predicted that by part three, it would have already gotten as huge as it is.
PAT CASEY: I mean, the studio, we never got the sense that they really thought that this had potential to become gigantic. If they did, they would never have hired us in the first place.
COLLIDER: One of the many reasons why I think the Sonic films have become one of the earliest and best examples of this sort of video game adaptation renaissance that we're in, was the first impression of the first movie led to a lot of feedback when it when it came to Sonic’s design, but it led to something pretty unprecedented, which was a complete overhaul that gave us the version that we all know and love now. When that redesign for the first film happened, did you have to retool elements of the script, or was it kind of just as is?
CASEY: There were no reshoots at all. All the live action stuff remained exactly the same. So the story overall remained pretty much the same. We did come back in and retool some stuff, especially the very beginning of the movie.
MILLER: Yeah, I was gonna say it wasn't even that changing the design necessitated retooling anything in the script. It was more that we got to, because on any movie, including the sequels, there's always a release date. And filmmakers, I'm sure, Jeff Fowler and Toby Ascher and everyone would say the same thing, you never actually have as much time as you wish you could have. But when they bumped back the release date a few months, just because they needed time to be able to re-render certain things, that just gave the whole production more time to keep retooling with the script. So it's all things we probably would have done if the release date had already been in February of 2020 the whole time. So it was, it was kind of an, actually an interesting miracle, in a way, to get this extra time that you almost never get.
Casey and Miller Agree That Keanu Reeves Is the Perfect Shadow
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COLLIDER: Sounds like all the pieces fell into place perfectly for that and obviously it paid off. Moving on to Sonic 3, the film introduces Shadow the Hedgehog, of course, voiced by a perfectly cast Keanu Reeves. Since Speed has been referenced a few times in the first two films, I imagine your fans. What was it like when you got the news that Keanu was cast as Shadow?
MILLER: I mean, it's crazy, like if anything, we thought it was so cool [when] they had to get his permission to use the clip of Speed in Part One. So even just that minor connection, like when we learned that we're like, ‘Oh man! Keanu knows about the movie? That's so cool! And he said yes? That's even cooler!
CASEY: We were just excited that we thought, like, maybe this meant that Keanu would watch the first movie, haha.
MILLER: Yeah, But I think as any Sonic super-fan on the internet knows, Keanu has kind of been a fan choice to play Shadow for a while. Plus, I think he was all of ours, as fans, choice as well. So what's when we heard that, like he'd agreed to do it, it just, you know. This nice feeling that the kind of like the stars are aligning for this franchise, and things kind of keep working out the way you hope they will.
CASEY: And it’s just perfect because Shadow obviously bears some similarities to John Wick in terms of what they're going through, but also some similarities to Neo in terms of his ability set. It's crazy.
COLLIDER: Well, that actually factors perfectly into my next question. When you were writing Shadow, was Keanu someone you just always had in mind for the part? Even though you obviously don't know [who will be cast] when you're writing the character.
MILLER: Yeah, we certainly had his voice in our minds. I think whether we wanted to or not, that was the talk even before starting on Part Three.
CASEY: We had that discussion early with Jeff and Toby, of like, ‘So who are we going to get for Shadow?’ And we're kind of like, ‘I mean, I think Keanu? If Keanu will do it?’ So we were like, ‘Go right into Keanu. Perfect.’
MILLER: Yeah, Whereas, like on Sonic 2, the internet had not already been fan casting Idris Elba as knuckles. Obviously he was perfect, but yeah, that had less of a specific voice in our brain while writing it.
COLLIDER: With Shadow, I imagine it was like, ‘Okay, there's only one person who can do this’.
MILLER: Yeah!
The Challenges of Adapting 'Sonic Adventure 2'
Image via Paramount Pictures
COLLIDER: Sticking with Shadow where the previous Sonic movies combined elements from all the games, Sonic 3 is almost a direct adaptation of Sonic Adventure 2, and that includes Shadow’s backstory with Maria. Given how dark that storyline is, were there any challenges you had to overcome while adapting Shadow’s game accurate story for the big screen?
MILLER: It was definitely like, ‘What's the balance? How much, how dark can it get and still be a PG?’ I don't think it was ever really floated the idea that it might be a PG-13.
CASEY: It was also looking at his backstory and sort of how complicated it was and think about like how to tie that into Sonic’s story, which, you know, we really like looked at the parallels of your found family, and what that family experience was like. How your family forms who you are, and then carry that theme over to the Robotniks as well. Even Shadow’s backstory, it's not exactly the same. There's elements missing. In the game Maria and Shadow like, lived on the space ARK with Gerald, but we were like, ‘A giant space station in the ‘70s doesn't really make sense’.
MILLER: Yeah and she also has got like this terminal illness and all this stuff so.
CASEY: We kind of looked at that was like, ‘Is Maria's terminal illness really important to this story?’ It doesn't seem like we needed it, at least for our movie version.
MILLER: The simple answer is that I think Jeff weighed everything and tried everything too. That keeps getting adjusted, even in post production. The kind of like figuring out how much can we include.
CASEY: There were certain things. I mean, Jeff loved the image of Maria and Shadow pressing their hands up against the tube. So that was always going to be in it. Those beautiful shots that he loves to get.
COLLIDER: Great song choice too. “End of the Line” fits that flashback sequence perfectly.
CASEY: Hey, it’s not historically accurate for when that song came out.
COLLIDER: True but I thought it fit the scene pretty well. So I think it was a good creative choice!
MILLER: I choose to say that The Traveling Wilburys have always existed.
That’s what this movie has revealed.
The 'Sonic' Movies Crafted an "Arena" for Jim Carrey
Image via Paramount Pictures
COLLIDER: You mentioned Carrey. Yet another big reason for the films’ success is Carrey’s perfect performance, this time as two Robotniks, both Ivo and Gerald. Carrey, of course, is very well known for his improv, and while I imagine this might be a case by case basis, what are your perspectives [as] screenwriters when improvised moments happen? Is it flattering when an actor takes your material and runs with it? Is it frustrating when something you've written gets taken in a different direction?
MILLER: Fortunately with Jim, we're in a good place where we almost feel bad at times. Just be like ‘Oh man, that Jim Carrey stuff was so funny. How'd you write all that?’ And it's like, ‘Well Jim Carrey wrote most of that.’ We grew up with the Ace Ventura generation, and we've always felt, looking at that movie as filmmakers, part of why that movie worked so well is that it wasn't written to be a Jim Carrey movie. It's actually a very tightly written script, but the special sauce on that is that it's kind of like a silly concept with a pretty good actual mystery, detective story, and then Jim just changed everything he did. And, you know, we think of that in some ways, writing the movies. It's just kind of like, what we're building is an arena for him to kind of go bonkers and come up with all these ideas.
CASEY: We just tried to give him, like, a framework. Jim has lots of notes, but they're never really about the story. Like, he really embraced the story of his grandfather coming back in his life, this sort of toxic pairing figure, and then Ivo regresses into a little kid instantly. That was sort of the comic premise we gave Jim, and then Jim and the team, and John Whittington, I'm sure, helped as well with all that stuff, adding gags on top of that comic premise. And we really got some great stuff, but also some pathos, which is what we really wanted to get for Robotnik into this one. For Robotnik to become more than just a two dimensional villain, we see he's this hurt person inside and even somebody, an evil mad scientist like Robotnik, there's a heart in there.
MILLER: Yeah, at the end of the day, he just wants a friend too.
COLLIDER: Yeah, I also love how over the course of these three movies, it's him slowly turning into, the game accurate version. He starts out this kind of cool scientist in the first one, then he gets the mustache in the second one, then he gets the suit in this one. It’s really good visual character development.
MILLER: Well, that's another thing. You can't plan out for the beginning, because if we'd only ever gotten the first film, I would fully understand that fans would just be like, ‘I don't understand why couldn't Robotnik look like the character?’ But now that fans have stuck with the franchise, it's fun actually that we that he eases into it. It kind of gives each movie like a new thing to offer, rather than kind of just repeating the same stuff over and over.
'Violent Night 2' Will Expand on Santa's Viking Backstory
Image via Universal Pictures
COLLIDER: It sounds like things just fitting together is a very awesome running theme for the series. Stepping away from Sonic for a second, we recently got an update for another project you've been working on. David harbor recently posted an image on social media of him with, what I imagine, is your script for Violent Night 2. What can fans of the first film and its action movie take on Santa Claus expect from the sequel?
MILLER: I mean, lessons learned from the Sonic franchise, trying to elevate things, expand the mythology. And you know, the Violent Night movies are not as big budget as the Sonic movies, but we still want this one to feel bigger than the first one. And you don't want Santa just trapped in a mansion again.
CASEY: And one little teaser: Santa’s gonna take his shirt off even more in this one. We know what the people want.
COLLIDER: Well, you mentioned the mythology. I'm sure that's gonna be exciting, because there was that one lore tidbit we got in the first one.
CASEY: We know people are hungry for more of his Viking backstory. David is especially excited about that stuff.
'It Takes Two' Is a New Kind of Video Game Adaptation for Miller and Casey
Image via Hazelight Studios
COLLIDER: Yeah, he seems like he loves that character. So it'll be very exciting to see. And along with Violent Night 2, you're also working on your first post-Sonic video game adaptation: It Takes Two, based on the 2021 Game of the Year winner. Very different type of game that's very, very story driven. What drew you to the game as your next project, and what else can you tell us about it?
MILLER: I mean, that was just nice that the Sonic movies have been doing well. So that was something that was offered to us if we wanted to be a part of it. Sonic we grew up with. It's a 30 year old game. It Takes Two, when it was offered to us, I don't even think it was even a year old yet. So we're like, let us play the game. And we played it, and we were both like, ‘holy shi’, awesome!’ It's a lot of story. Way more story than, say, Sonic the Hedgehog Part One. So that was its own challenge of figuring out what to use. But the kernel of the story of a kid making a wish and her parents turning into two of her toys, that was just such an appealing cinematic concept.
CASEY: So inherently movie like, but, yeah. The challenge is sort of the opposite of Sonic. [With] Sonic, adapting the first game into the first movie like all it was was there's a fast hedgehog and a mad scientist, and they're gonna fight like that. That was what we took from the game. It Takes Two, there's so much story that it was like. Again, adapting anything, it's like, what's the most important part of this? And then kind of drop some of the side elements so that we can get, you know, the game is like a 10 hour adventure, and get it down to two. I don't even know how long it took us. It was funny, we took several days just to play video games.
MILLER: Which is great!
CASEY: I highly recommend the game, and hopefully the movie will have more specific news when it's going into production on the scene side, hopefully. But we can't announce anything official at this moment, other than we're very excited about it.
'Sonic 4' (or a Future 'Sonic' Sequel) Could Introduce a Fan-Favorite Feline
Image via Netflix
COLLIDER: I think I got time for one more quick question. Going back to Sonic, I'd be remiss not to mention the end credit scene, which introduces a few major characters from the games. Since it’s only been announced a week ago. I imagine it's still very early days for Sonic 4, but just off the top of your heads, is there anything you really want to expand upon with the plot, the characters, the story, so on for a potential new movie?
MILLER: It’s such an obvious answer, but it's crazy that we're three movies in and we keep bringing in essentially two new characters in each sequel. And we still know that fans are saying, ‘When are we going to get to see so and so? What about this one?’ So it's not hard to imagine there can be easily several more sequels and keep expanding the universe. The franchise has not done a whole lot really into the idea of where Sonic came from. I mean, I know Sega has their specific parameters on what to do with that, but there's still so much room for it to grow.
CASEY: I mean, I feel like these movies, as they continue to succeed, we're also earning more and more leeway from Sega as they trust us more and more, Sega have been great partners. But I'll tell you what I really want from these movies moving forward: Someday we're gonna get Big the Cat into these things. That's where this is all going.
MILLER: Yes! In Sonic the Hedgehog Part Ten! Finally!
CASEY: Big the Cat is our Thanos, you know?
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is playing in theaters now.
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Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is the sequel to the 2022 comedy-adventure movie that featured the Blue Blur and his companions on an adventure to stop Dr. Robotnik from taking over the world. The new film sees the new antagonist Shadow the Hedgehog, arriving to cause trouble for the newly formed trio of heroes, Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles, as they adjust to their earthly lives.
Release Date December 20, 2024
Runtime 109 Minutes
Writers Pat Casey , Josh Miller , John Whittington
English (US) ·