Across three live-action films, Sonic the Hedgehog has become a bona fide movie star, bringing in more than $1.2 billion at the box office. A fourth Sonic the Hedgehog movie is in the works for 2027, but Sega and Paramount Pictures' moneymaker will make a surprise return to movie theaters well before then. Paramount revealed Sonic's next cinematic outing on Wednesday, with the mascot making a surprise appearance in the second trailer for The Angry Birds Movie 3.
While Sonic's appearance in the third Angry Birds movie is something of a surprise, it also makes perfect sense — from a corporate synergy perspective. The Angry Birds Movie 3's second trailer includes a brief scene with banana-shaped bird Chuck, who is voiced by Josh Gad, racing alongside Sonic the Hedgehog. Given that Chuck is known as the fastest resident of Bird Island, a speed contest between the two video game characters makes contextual sense.
How does Sonic the Hedgehog find himself in the cinematic world of Angry Birds? That's not clear yet, but the cameo may simply be a dream sequence or hallucination — or even a non sequitur, because the plot of an Angry Birds film seems tertiary to physical comedy, avian plays on words, and gross-out gags. (Whereas the first Angry Birds Movie 3 trailer was full of piss, the second offers some surprising projectile vomiting in an unsettling motherbirding moment.) From a cold corporate perspective, though, the Sonic-Angry Birds crossover makes perfect sense. Sega acquired Rovio, the Finnish company behind the Angry Birds games, back in 2023 for a whopping $775 million.
Since then, Sonic and the Angry Birds have crossed over in a handful of Sega- and Rovio-published games, such as Angry Birds 2, Angry Birds Friends, Sonic Dash, Sonic Forces: Speed Battle, and Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds. The Angry Birds Movie 3's plot synopsis is straightforward: "This holiday season, one angry bird will face his greatest challenge yet, surviving fatherhood… while saving the world!" In other words, Jason Sudeikis' Red has to juggle parenting while fending off a new threat from Angry Birds' pernicious pigs. The Angry Birds Movie 3 features the voices of Jason Sudeikis, Josh Gad, Emma Myers, Rachel Bloom, Walker Scobell, Danny McBride, Marcello Hernández, Tim Robinson, Anna Cathcart, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Nikki Glaser, Jimmy "MrBeast" Donaldson, Salish Matter, Psalm West, Sam Richardson, James Austin Johnson, Lily James, and Keke Palmer.
Sonic the Hedgehog fans can enjoy the latest Angry Birds crossover when The Angry Birds Movie 3 comes to movie theaters on Dec. 23. The original Angry Birds Movie is currently streaming on Paramount Plus, while the sequel, The Angry Birds Movie 2, is streaming on Netflix. The next live-action Sonic movie, Sonic the Hedgehog 4, is slated to hit movie theaters on March 19, 2027.
Paramount also has a still-mysterious Sonic spinoff coming, which is planned for Dec. 22, 2028.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
