We had a pretty good idea that Shadow was going to make his big-screen debut in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 since he was briefly introduced in the recent sequel's mid-credits scene, but we had no idea who would provide the character's voice... until now.
Confirming a rumor that did the rounds earlier today, THR has announced that none other than Keanu Reeves will play Shadow in Paramount Pictures' third Sonic movie.
The news follows the studio's recent CinemaCon presentation, which spotlighted the first footage from the threequel. In the teaser, we learn that Jim Carrey's villainous Dr. Robotnik survived his battle with Sonic at the end of the previous movie, and has packed on a few pounds in the interim (bringing him more in line with his video game counterpart).
Attendees were then shown a clip of Shadow in action, as he does battle with the blue speedster and his allies, Tails and Knuckles.
Shadow was created as a dark mirror to Sonic, and was introduced in 2001’s Sonic Adventure 2. He went on to become more of an anti-hero in later games, but will serve as a full-on antagonist in Sonic 3.
Reeves has had a prolific career since shooting to fame in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, appearing in the likes of The Matrix, Bram Stoker's Dracula, and, more recently, the John Wick movies.
"We got really excited about the idea of expanding our characters in our world into television, specifically, because it gives us a platform to really do character studies," executive producer Toby Asche said of Shadow's debut in a recent interview. "We knew that, with Shadow coming into Sonic 3 and some of the bigger things that we want to do, the Sonic franchise on the movie side is going to be these Avengers-level events."
"They’re going to be these big, exciting stories that have a lot of different characters," Asche added. "And so what television did for us is it gave us time to go into some of the more supporting characters in depth and really build them out in cool ways."
Jeff Fowler will return to helm Sonic 3, with Ben Schwartz (Sonic), Colleen O'Shaughnessey (Miles "Tails" Prower), Idris Elba (Knuckles), James Marsden (Tom Wachowski), Tika Sumpter (Maddie Wachowski), and Jim Carrey (Dr. Robotnik) all set to reprise their respective roles from the first two movies.
New cast additions include Krysten Ritter (Jessica Jones), Alyla Browne (Furiosa), James Wolk (Harley Quinn), Sofia Pernas (Jane the Virgin), Cristo Fernández (Ted Lasso), and Jorma Taccone (Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse).
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is set to hit theaters on December 20.