Summary

• Knuckles co-creator Toby Ascher explains how the Sonic the Hedgehog spinoff will be different from previous movies.
• Despite sharing the buddy-comedy setup of the original movie, Ascher teases that the show will have "two wildcards" with the titular echidna and Adam Pally's Wade.
• By having no typical straight man for the buddy formula, the co-creator promises that Knuckles is "the most laugh-out-loud, funniest version of this franchise."

While the setup looks to borrow the buddy-comedy formula from the franchise starters, Knuckles co-creator Toby Ascher explains how the show’s story is different from that of the previous Sonic movies. A spinoff of the popular Sonic the Hedgehog film franchise, the Paramount+ miniseries follows the titular hot-headed red echidna in his attempts to train Wade Whipple, a silly deputy sheriff, in the ways of the echidna warrior. The series is comprised of six episodes, which will all arrive on Paramount+ on April 26.

Now, in a recent interview with Screen Rant ahead of the release of the Knuckles miniseries, co-creator Toby Ascher, who also worked on the previous Sonic movies, reveals that the buddy-comedy relationship between James Marsden's Tom and Sonic in the earlier movies initially influenced the story idea for this forthcoming show. He, however, went into further details, stating that the show takes more chances comedically than any other thing that has been done in the franchise thus far. Read his full comments below:

Well, I think we really liked the idea of telling a similar story to the first movie, in that that movie's about Sonic finding a family. With Knuckles, specifically, because one of our favorite things about the first movie was the buddy-comedy relationship between James Morrison and Sonic, that back-and-forth, we just had a lot of fun doing that with the two of them. What James provides in that movie is he's kind of the straight man to Sonic, who is this wildcard.

So, the initial idea with Knuckles and Wade is how would a buddy comedy work if you had two kinds of crazy characters, two wildcards in a buddy comedy, and neither of them is necessarily the straight man. So, that was the impetus for how to build out the comedy. We knew from Sonic 1 and Sonic 2 how talented Adam Pally was, and that he was this incredible improviser, and this incredible physical comedian. We thought just the balance of putting him together with Idris, and specifically, this Drax-style fish-out-of-water comedy could create something special.

I think that allowed us to probably take more chances comedically than we have in the past on the two Sonic movies. At least, for me, I think Knuckles is the most laugh-out-loud, funniest version of this franchise that we've had, and in a lot of ways reminds me of some of these '90s comedies that I grew up on, whether it's Happy Gilmore, or other things that live in that space.

What Else To Expect From The New Knuckles Series

It did not come as much of a surprise when reports about two years ago first indicated at a Sonic the Hedgehog series focusing on Knuckles. While the popular and vast Sonic franchise has produced several notable ing characters over the years since its inception, Knuckles remains arguably the biggest star after the franchise’s central character and their fox friend, Tails. Following the confirmation of the miniseries by Paramount Pictures, there have been numerous reports about the cast of the show and the possible storyline.

It is expected that the events of the Knuckles series will take place between Sonic The Hedgehog 2, which was released in 2022, and the forthcoming Sonic The Hedgehog 3, which is set for release on December 20, 2024.

As regards to the cast of the Knuckles series, it was confirmed shortly after the announcement of the forthcoming show that Idris Elba, who previously voiced Knuckles in Sonic the Hedgehog 2, would be reprising his role in this series. Alongside Elba, other notable actors like Adam Pally, who is set to play Deputy Sheriff Wade Whipple, Rory McCann, Scott Mescudi, Tika Sumpter, Ben Schwartz, Cary Elwes and Coleen O'Shaughnessey will also be featuring in the new show.

Aside from the cast of the show, it is expected that the events of the Knuckles series will take place between Sonic The Hedgehog 2, which was released in 2022, and the forthcoming Sonic The Hedgehog 3, which is set for release on December 20. This means that the Knuckles series will be pivotal to the entire Sonic film series, and whatever major events or character development that occurs in the series will likely carry over into the highly anticipated Sonic The Hedgehog 3.

Knuckles begins streaming on Paramount+ on April 26.