A Sonic the Hedghog Movie Franchise is Racing to the Big Screen

Those who are old enough to remember the Sega Master System and Sega Genesis, like yours truly, will recall that Sonic the Hedgehog was designed as the company's response to Super Mario. He was meant to be their flagship character, and Sonic has lived up to that title for 23 years, multiple consoles and games, comic books, and Saturday morning cartoons. The first and last time we saw Sonic on the big screen was in Disney's Wreck-It-Ralph, but now the speedster hedgehog with the spiky hair is about to get his own franchise at a different studio.

Deadline reports that Sony is planning an ambitious live-action/CGI Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, with plans to release one film every year. Screenwriters Evan Susser and Van Robichaux will attempt to harness Sonic's "irreverent tone and spirit", but really his defining attribute is speed and it will be interesting to see who Sony gets to try and capture that. Sonic's nemesis, the evil bulbous Dr. Robotnik will naturally be a part of the story, but what about sidekick Tails? How about Knuckles? These characters need some love, too.

This comes at a time when Sony just ditched hybrid animation for The Smurfs 3, going fully-animated for the 2016 film. So there's something they see in Sonic the Hedgehog that The Smurfs must not have, and maybe it's as simple as following the trend of blockbuster video games as major studio movies.