Several months ago I saw some rumors start pop up that Keanu Reeves was in talks to play Shadow in Sonic 3. These rumors came before Hayden Christensen’s name popped up, and it was believed that Christensen was going to voice the character.
Well, according to John Campea that’s not the case. He is confidently confirming that Keanu Reeves has signed on to voice the character Shadow in the movie. He says he heard it from a reliable source during CinemaCon last week.
So, if this is true, then Reeves as Shadow would be pretty freakin’ awesome! We actually got to see some footage from Sonic 3 at CinemaCon.
That footage featured Shadow in action as he clashed with Sonic in epic hedgehog glory! You can watch us talk about that footage here.
I love the Sonic franchise, and this next film looks like it’ll be another entertaining chapter of the story!
When previously talking about Shadow’s involvement, the film’s co-writer Pat Casey said Shadow was brought to the franchise primarily because of his popularity, and also because of what he could bring to the films going forward.
Casey described him as “driven by anger and revenge,” similar to Knuckles, but the key difference is that Shadow isn’t misunderstood like the red echidna was in the sequel.”
He said: “Shadow was created with the prime goal of protecting the world from danger, but it’s the way he goes about that that will put him at odds with Sonic and his friends.”
He went on to say: “Sonic’s never had to deal with someone as emotionally damaged like Shadow…when he sees Shadow, he’s like, ‘Well, I’ll just teach him about the power of friendship, like with Knuckles!’ But that’s not going to work on Shadow.”
In the character’s background, Shadow’s desire to protect humanity stems from witnessing the death of his friend Maria at the hands of G.U.N.
It seems like Shadow and Sonic may be able to team up against G.U.N. for the same objective, but Shadow is coming in not knowing Sonic’s intentions, and he is apprehensive, having just gone through something traumatic.
Franchise producer Toby Asche also previously teased big things for the future of the franchise and how the movies are going to keep getting bigger in scale.
Asche talked about their plans for the series and then teased that the film side would feature “Avengers-level events.”
He said: “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.”
The producer added: “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.”
Jeff Fowler is returning to direct Sonic 3 with Ben Schwartz as Sonic the Hedgehog, Colleen O’Shaughnessey as Miles “Tails” Prower, Idris Elba as Knuckles the Echidna, James Marsden as Tom Wachowski, Tika Sumpter as Maddie Wachowski, and Jim Carrey as Dr. Robotnik.
New additions to the franchise will include Krysten Ritter (Jessica Jones), Alyla Browne (Furiosa), James Wolk (Harley Quinn), Sofia Pernas (Jane the Virgin), Cristo Fernández (Ted Lasso), and Jorma Taccone (Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse).
Knuckles is set to premiere on Paramount+ on April 26, while Sonic the Hedgehog 3 will hit theaters on December 20.
