In the wake of the success of the “Sonic the Hedgehog” movies for them, game developer SEGA has revealed that it’s interested in potentially adapting some of their other IPs for the big screen.
The first “Sonic the Hedgehog” hit cinemas in 2020 and grossed almost $320 million at the box office, whilst the sequel arrived last year and generated over $405 million.
Following the publication of the company’s full-year earnings in April, Sega Sammy CEO Haruki Satomi and CFO Koichi Fukazawa participated in a Q&A session which has now just been translated into English.
The pair were asked about the possibility of making non-Sonic movies with the following statement given (via VGC):
“We would like to take on challenges outside of the Sonic IP should the opportunity arise. If we can match the timing of game launches to the release of movies, it would be extremely effective from a marketing perspective and there are also significant benefits, such as increasing awareness of our IP and increasing the number of touch points for customers, as we achieved with the Sonic movie.”
SEGA’s notable franchises outside of “Sonic” include game series like “Yakuza” (aka. “Like A Dragon”), “Streets of Rage,” “Total War,” “Virtua Fighter,” “Shenmue,” “Phantasy Star,” “Super Monkey Ball” and “Megami Tensei”.
The company has “Sonic the Hedgehog 3” scheduled for release in December 2024. Also on the way is a live-action TV series starring Knuckles and set between the second and third movies.
The talk comes in the wake of Nintendo’s fully animated “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” becoming the highest-grossing video game adaptation of all time with over $1.2 billion at the box office since its release in early April. That film released digitally in the United States today.