According to Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, the infamous Sonic character Shadow will be voiced by Keanu Reeves for Sonic the Hedgehog 3.
This news broke during last week’s CinemaCon, with the first footage shown on screen from Paramount Pictures not available to the public. Reeves joins a successful video game-to-movie franchise for the upcoming threequel during the holiday season this year.
The third movie for Sonic will be about the events from the second film with Jim Carrey’s character, Dr. Robotnik. He creates an anti-hero in Shadow, who is opposite to Sonic in basically every way as an edgy and dark rival and villain antagonist.
This is a perfect role for Reeves in voice acting a popular character that was introduced in 2001’s Sonic Adventure 2 video game that this upcoming movie will be adapting.
Keanu Reeves Cast as Shadow in Sonic 3
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Keanu Reeves as Shadow is the perfect persona for him. He is famously known as Neo in 1999’s The Matrix and the John Wick Franchise has lasted from 2014 till John Wick: Chapter 4, 2023’s installment and most recent movie. He also reprised his role for 2021’s The Matrix: Resurrections as Neo and has been in video games like 2020’s Cyberpunk 2077.
Reeves has done voice work in animated family movies Toy Story 4 in 2019 as Duke Caboom and Batman in DC League of Super-Pets in 2022. Although he hasn’t been in Dreamworks films, he has been involved with Warner Bros. Pictures, Pixar, and Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.
Surprisingly, he has usually been the main or supporting character as a hero type in films. Being a villain will be new territory for Reeves, but he has experience as the classic antihero in the John Wick movies.
Reeves’ cast as Shadow was first reported by The John Campea Show two days ago on April 15th. The official Sonic Movie account posted a sneak peek of the new potential villain Shadow. A trailer is not out yet for Sonic the Hedgehog 3 as he joins a new blockbuster franchise.
Reeves’s Involvement in Sonic Franchise Foreshadowed
From the first Sonic the Hedgehog film back in 2020, one of Reeve’s past films Speed from 1994 makes a cameo in a movie Sonic is a fan of. So, despite joining the cast for the first time as Shadow, it was not the first time something Reeves was in was mentioned in the SEGA franchise.
The iconic hitman will voice the anthropomorphic hedgehog, likely juxtaposing and clashing with the main hero Sonic. The Hollywood Reporter states this was announced behind closed doors at this year’s CinemaCon.
This new film will likely adapt video games like 2005’s Shadow the Hedgehog and 2003’s Sonic Heroes, both SEGA classic games along with Sonic Adventures 1 and 2. Plot elements in games like 2006’s Sonic the Hedgehog and 2010’s Sonic Colors could also be involved in some way.
Sonic Frontiers from 2022 is the most recent SEGA platform game that has been pretty big for the video game industry since it came out.
Surprisingly, the character Sonic himself has been involved in the Vtubing industry, as he and other characters in the franchise have been streaming. This includes both English speaking on YouTube officially and in Japan, as he has collaborated with company Vtubers like Hololive before during the releases of new games, like Frontiers.
2024 is the Year of Sonic Content with Reeves
With a Christmas release date, Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog 3 will debut in theatres on December 20th, 2024 according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Ben Schwarts as Sonic, Idris Elba as Knuckles, Jim Carrey as Dr. Robotnik, and Colleen O’Shaughnessey as Tails all return for the third Sonic film. With Reeves introduced as Shadow, the franchise gets another star in a Jeff Fowler-directed film with a packed cast.
Fowler returns as the director from the two past movies, with the sequel beating out the original even with the global circumstances at the time (COVID-19).
According to Forbes, the predecessor of the hit video game adaptation surpassed $400 Million at the global box office. Sonic 2 was Hollywood’s 16th top-grosser during the Pandemic and one of the hit kid’s films that year.
For the original 2020’s Sonic and 2022’s Sonic 2 according to Variety, it sits at a combined global box office of $752.2 million as one of Paramount’s most successful franchise films. Paramount+ will also release a spin-off mini-series involving Idris Elba called Knuckles on April 26th.
Sonic 3 will likely do well at the box office in 2024, but it will have tough competition with the other films coming up and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. According to Box Office Mojo, Dune Part Two, Kung Fu Panda 4, and Godzilla x Kong have been the highest-grossing movies this year.
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