Image: Paramount
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is a little over a month away. The third live-action movie starring the blue blur will premiere on December 20, and will include the proper debut of Keanu Reeves’ Shadow. But Paramount is apparently thinking ahead, as well. According to director Jeff Fowler, the third film will include a tease of a possible fourth movie, and naturally this has fans wondering which Sonic character might pop up after the credits roll. Whoever comes next will have a tough act to follow, as Shadow’s tease at the end of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was a huge moment for the live-action movies that had fans popping off in the theater. Who do we think is most likely to be burdened with this heavy responsibility? Will it be the next villain, or could it be a new ally for Sonic and his friends? I rounded up characters I think have an actual shot—even a very small one— at showing up at some point in Sonic 3, and am ranking them based on how likely I think they are to be the featured reveal in the big post-credits stinger.
Image: Sega
Look, it would be a good bit. Big the Cat, the lovable oaf who debuted in Sonic Adventure, is beloved by fans despite mostly being a joke character in recent years. While he’s not often a playable fixture in the series, Big has been surprisingly present in several big games, to the point where I feel like he will probably show up somewhere down the line if the Sonic live-action universe continues to draw in ticket sales. I can already envision a scene in which Big is running around, chasing his slippery sidekick Froggy through the wreckage of whatever destruction Shadow creates in Sonic 3. Will it actually happen? No chance. That’s why Big is kicking off this list as the least likely hero to show up in Sonic 3.
Image: Sega
Did you know the detective agency trio of Vector the Crocodile, Espio the Chameleon, and Charmy Bee already exists in the live-action Sonic universe? They showed up in a prequel comic for the second film, but have yet to make it to the big screen. There was speculation they might show up in the Knuckles Paramount+ show given their ties to the echidna in the games, but that series was so disinterested in its title character that I would have been baffled if any other game characters showed up. Even so, since we know these three sleuths are in this continuity, it seems likely they’ll make an appearance somewhere down the line. However, with so many big names in the Sonic franchise still unaccounted for, I have a hard time seeing them setting up the next film.
Image: Sega
I think there’s a strong possibility that Chaos, the water-like mutant antagonist of the original Sonic Adventure, is the villain in a future Sonic movie. Whether that’s Sonic 4 or another movie down the line, Chaos is the kind of world-ending threat that these movies seem to be leading toward as they escalate and raise the stakes each time. However, I do think these movies need a marketable face to tease what’s next, and that’s why Tails and Shadow’s appearances at the end of the first two movies made sense. They were both well-known characters that you could see facilitating merchandise like figures and plushies. Chaos is exciting to long-time Sonic fans and I would love to see him flood a city and Sonic make some joke about how the team is “gonna need a bigger boat,” but as a post-credits stinger? There are probably more likely candidates.
Image: Sega
Okay, hear me out. E-123 Omega is a popular character as the third member of Shadow’s Team Dark, but he certainly wouldn’t make for a big, crowd-pleasing post-credits scene on his own. However, the reason I can see Eggman’s abandoned robot maybe showing up at the end of Sonic 3 is because I think there’s a possibility that the movie’s ending could also be setting up the reported Shadow-centric spin-off. If you’ve played Sonic Adventure 2, you know how that story ends for Shadow: he falls to Earth from space, is presumed dead, and then is found by Eggman for his own experiments. If Shadow meets a similar fate at the end of Sonic 3, a robot is going to probably have to find him, right? Who better than his future teammate?
Come on, Paramount. Give me this.
Image: Sega
Now we’re moving away from wishful thinking and into “actually possible” territory. Silver the Hedgehog, the time-traveling telekinetic hero from the future, seems like a shoo-in for a future Sonic live-action movie. If he does show up, I can’t imagine him not being accompanied by Blaze the Cat, his companion from the future in his debut in Sonic ‘06 (though we’ll ignore the way Sega retconned her origins and decided she’s from another dimension, because we don’t need to make Sonic a multiverse story this early into the cinematic universe).
Image: Sega
I expect this pair to show up in the near future because some of the groundwork has already been laid. One of the more baffling parts of the Knuckles series featured a reference to Iblis, a major villain in Sonic ‘06 and a central figure in the two’s story. The show made some embellishments to Iblis’ nature, so the next movie probably won’t be a 1:1 recreation of Sonic ‘06, but with both Iblis and Shadow joining the live-action universe this year, Paramount has a lot of the pieces in place to make the next movie a retelling of one of the more controversial games in Sonic’s portfolio.
Image: Sega
I can’t believe we haven’t seen Rouge the Bat in the live-action Sonic universe yet. Unless Paramount is deliberately hiding her in all the trailers and promotional materials, it doesn’t seem like she’ll be making an appearance in Sonic 3 proper despite it being a loose adaptation of Sonic Adventure 2, which featured the debut of the treasure-hunting spy. I was hopeful she would show up in the Knuckles show since she’s considered the titular Echidna’s rival, but again, that show barely had time for one CG character, much less two. So here we are, with no sign of the leader of Team Dark even after a show and a movie that would have been easy entry points.
If Rouge isn’t secretly in Sonic 3, I could see her debut in the live-action universe being much like the beginning of Team Dark’s story in Sonic Heroes. She could happen upon Shadow in stasis while looking for treasure in Eggman’s base, then one thing leads to another and the team is formed. Typing that out, I realize it seems like a stronger basis for the opening of the reported Shadow spin-off, but I do think Rouge joining the cinematic universe is a matter of when, not if. In recent games and shows like Sonic Dream Team and Sonic Prime, Rouge has been treated as a friend of Sonic, rather than being more closely tied to Shadow as she has been in most other appearances, so there’s a chance the Sonic movies go that route. That would be incredibly disappointing to me as a Team Dark stan, though, especially after Sega brought the band back together this year in Shadow Generations.
Image: Sega
Unlike Tails and Shadow, I don’t see Amy Rose as the kind of character who can kickstart the narrative of a sequel on her own. She’d probably need to be paired with some other character or force in a post-credit scene, but the Sonic movies desperately need her after being a boy’s club for three movies. Amy is often treated as secondary to the main trio of Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles, but she’s ultimately a core part of the heroes’ dynamic and it’s about time she showed up. Paramount has omitted her for so long that I’m not sure how she’ll fit into this storyline, but someone over there needs to figure it out, and sooner rather than later.
Image: Sega
If they wanted to get real bold, I could see Cream the Rabbit showing up alongside Amy, making the whole cast of anthropomorphic characters more well-rounded. Either way, I don’t see a version of events in which she shows up without Amy also being there, given the two are considered a pair not unlike Sonic and Tails. It wouldn’t be my ideal choice, but I can also see Paramount trying to package Amy, Cream, and Rouge as a girl-centric group in a call-back to the scrapped Sonic Heroes team that would have featured the three of them working together. I’d rather Paramount find a way to keep Rouge affiliated with Shadow, though. In any case, the Sonic movies need to add in Amy and I’m surprised they haven’t already.
Image: Sega
Fans have been speculating that Metal Sonic, the robotic recreation of the blue blur, will be the villain of the fourth installment, or maybe even a surprise antagonist in the third based on a scene in the movie’s first trailer. I do worry that setting up Metal Sonic as the next movie’s big bad could feel a little samey after Sonic facing an “evil” mirror image of himself in Shadow throughout Sonic 3, but it’s certainly an easier concept to explain in a family film than something like Iblis or Chaos. I hope Paramount swings for the fences and introduces something different in the next movie, but given that there’s already reason to believe Doctor Robotnik might be piecing Metal Sonic together, I fully expect the robot to make his debut in Sonic 3, whether that’s as an eleventh-hour villain or in a post-credits scene.
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