After months of waiting, theory-crafting, getting hyped over casting announcements, spotting worldwide ads in the wild, and surviving off of shoe teasers, we finally have the first trailer for Sonic the Hedgehog 3, complete with Keanu Reeves as the blue blur’s rival Shadow the Hedgehog.
The trailer shows Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles begrudgingly teaming up with Doctor Robotnik to stop Shadow, who is shown terrorizing a city. The team remarks that he’s the most powerful foe they’ve ever faced, and we see him absolutely pulverize the trio. It’s unclear at this point if Shadow will team up with Robotnik (even temporarily) as he does in the games, or if the movie will start with him already at odds with the doctor.
One of the big reveals is that Gerald Robotnik, the ol’ Egghead’s grandfather and the creator of Shadow, makes an appearance at the very end, also played by Robotnik actor Jim Carrey.
Check out the trailer below:
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is set to debut in theaters on December 20. It jumps off the second film’s post-credits cliffhanger, which shows Shadow waking up in a secret facility, having been kept in cryostasis for over 50 years. That’s par for the course for the character and matches his backstory from his debut in Sonic Adventure 2. Sonic 3 isn’t a 1:1 adaptation of the Dreamcast game, but is clearly borrowing some elements from it. Alyla Browne (who played the young Furiosa in the early stretch of this year’s Fury Road prequel) plays Maria Robotnik, a key figure in Shadow’s origin and a major character in the events of Sonic Adventure 2, so it’s clear the movie is drawing heavy inspiration from the 2001 platformer.
Reeves and Browne are making their series debuts with Sonic the Hedgehog 3, but returning cast members include Ben Schwartz as the titular speedy hedgehog, Colleen O’Shaughnessey reprising her role as Tails both from the previous two movies and the video games, and Idris Elba as Knuckles. Hopefully it’s better than the spin-off TV show the character got earlier this year from which he was conspicuously absent for half the show. Jim Carrey is also coming out of his brief retirement to play Doctor Robotnik again, though the character has notably put on weight this time around in keeping with how the mad scientist looks in the games. With the bald head and the long mustache, the transformation is now complete. Let’s just hope the whole movie isn’t just wall-to-wall fat jokes.
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 will wrap up the Year of Shadow, a year-long celebration of Sonic’s rival, which also includes a remaster of Sonic Generations with a new Shadow Generations game that revisits the character’s history, set to launch on October 25. It’s been a good year for Shadow fans who have not had much to look forward to since Sega started sidelining the hedgehog in 2006.