Summary

• Sonic the Hedgehog films have become more successful by staying faithful to their video game roots.
• Keanu Reeves, cast as Shadow in the upcoming Sonic 3 movie, hints at potential character direction.
• The film will likely loosely adapt Sonic Adventure 2, featuring a villainous Shadow and other iconic elements.

Thanks partly to one simple character redesign, Sonic the Hedgehog has become a lucrative franchise for Paramount Pictures. After a surprisingly successful debut outing that brought SEGA’s mascot into the real world with moderately amusing results, the films have since found much more rewarding returns by becoming increasingly faithful to the games. Sonic 2 introduced Tails and Knuckles (the latter of whom is getting his own Paramount+ series at the end of the month), and the upcoming third movie is finally giving the spotlight to everyone’s favorite edge lord hedgehog, Shadow.

After much speculation, this week finally gave us an official casting—the internet’s boyfriend, Keanu Reeves, will be voicing Shadow. The casting choice is an obvious one, and the reception to his inclusion in the film has been very positive. But where could the film possibly go with the character, considering his fairly complicated backstory and polarizing reception within the Sonic fandom? Today, we’re taking a deep dive into everything new fans need to know about Shadow the Hedgehog before Sonic 3 releases in December.

When Did Shadow the Hedgehog First Appear?

Shadow the Hedgehog was first introduced in 2001’s Sonic Adventure 2 for the SEGA Dreamcast, positioned initially as an evil counterpart to Sonic. However, it quickly became apparent that there was more to him than meets the eye. The backstory within the game reveals that he was genetically engineered by Dr. Robotnik’s grandfather, who hoped to cure his granddaughter Maria from a genetic disease, and Shadow formed a bond with her. He also discovered that he could use the power of the Chaos Emeralds to perform “Chaos Control,” which allowed him to distort time. The government declared Shadow a threat and placed him in suspended animation while the military organization G.U.N. killed Maria.

At the start of the game, Dr. Robotnik (Jim Carrey, after much speculation has been confirmed to return for the third movie) discovers and awakens Shadow, who is vengeful towards the human race as a result of Maria’s death. The two team up to, you guessed it, try and steal the Chaos Emeralds, which they plan to use to power a space cannon called the ARK to destroy Earth. Shadow successfully steals the Emeralds, framing Sonic for his crimes, but in the game’s climax, as the cannon powers up, he remembers a promise he once made to Maria to protect humankind. He helps Sonic stop the ARK, but the power of the Chaos Emeralds depletes his strength, and he plummets to Earth, presumed dead.

This was indeed intended to be Shadow’s end, but fan popularity brought him back for the franchise’s next major installment, 2004’s Sonic Heroes. In this game, he is found alive in Robotnik’s base, with no memory except for his name and Maria’s death. He teamed up with fellow anti-heroes Rouge the Bat and robot E-123 Omega to uncover his past, and this search carried over into the next year’s spinoff, Shadow the Hedgehog. This game pitted Shadow in a three-way battle against Robotnik, G.U.N., and an alien race known as the Black Doom. Further backstory revealed that Shadow was created in part from Black Doom’s blood, and the game ended with Shadow usurping his creators and putting his past behind him.

These last two games were much more polarizing than Shadow’s debut, and the latter game, in particular, received heavy criticism for taking his characterization in an overtly “edgy" direction (he wields guns and even swears throughout). Since then, Shadow has only been used sparingly in the Sonic franchise, with appearances in 2011’s Sonic Generations, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and the cartoons Sonic X and Sonic Prime, as well as the Sonic the Hedgehog comic books, where his backstory and characterization remain relatively unchanged.

How Could Sonic 3 Best Utilize Keanu Reeves' Shadow?

Since the directions later games took Shadow’s character rendered him hugely polarizing, there’s no easy answer to how the films could best utilize him. On paper, the best idea would be akin to how Deadpool 2 used Cable as a hyper-serious, deadly Terminator-type figure whose wannabe edginess sets him up as a figure of ridicule. But on the other hand, considering the Sonic franchise has one of the most notoriously divided fanbases out there, it’s easy to see some fans seeing this approach as too mean-spirited, not to mention the fact that Sonic the Hedgehog 2 arguably did this already with Knuckles.

However, the casting of Keanu Reeves could also pose a possible solution to this problem. Ever since John Wick revived his career, Reeves has been seen in the last decade as the go-to guy for playing stoic action heroes who use silence to terrifying effect. Making Shadow a figure sort of reminiscent of John Wick or Batman, both heroes who straddle the lines of morality regularly, could allow for characterization that would harken back to his original appearance – cool and dark without trying too hard to be edgy.

The other question is, if the creative team for Sonic 3 wanted to adapt one of Shadow’s storylines for the big screen, which would they go with? Already, a few hints may have given us an answer. Shadow has already been confirmed to be a villain for most of the film, teaming up with Dr. Robotnik to stop Sonic. The first teaser video included a snippet of one of the most beloved songs to ever be put in a Sonic game, Crush 40’s “Live and Learn” (which has already been confirmed will be used in the final film). And most tellingly, a recent casting announcement included a young actress, Alyla Browne, as Maria.

All signs seem to point to the film effectively being a loose adaptation of Sonic Adventure 2, which, on the whole, seems like a smart decision. For a franchise that struggled so infamously to jump from 2D to 3D, that game is widely considered one of the few in the latter category to be genuinely good, and crucially, it’s the one where fans responded most positively to Shadow. Again, the only concern going forward is that it seems a bit too much like a rehash of the second film’s use of Knuckles. Hopefully, the creative team will be able to find a new spin on a familiar plot and breathe new life into a polarizing character. But we'll know for sure once Sonic the Hedgehog 3 hits theaters on Dec. 20.