Idris Elba Teased That He Will Be Voicing Knuckles In The Next ‘Sonic The Hedgehog’ Movie

When Sonic the Hedgehog released its first movie trailer it wasn’t possible to have a more negative reaction. Sonic’s design was upsetting to many, the jokes in the trailer were painful, and for some reason “Gangsta’s Paradise” was playing. It felt like they completely missed the energy and feelings of why people loved Sonic.

After a delay and one redesign later, the movie came out and it surprised a lot of people. It was far better than the original trailer made it look and many people came out of it pleasantly surprised. As such, when a sequel was announced the reaction was completely different. There was genuine excitement about how they could build off the last movie and make a sequel better. One thing that was a requirement for every Sonic fan was the introduction of Sonic’s friends like Tails and Knuckles.

We received confirmation that Tails was coming when the sequel teaser was released, but we didn’t know anything about Knuckles and if he would make an appearance. While rumors flared up everywhere that he would make an appearance, there was no official confirmation that he would be appearing in the game. Until a tweet from Idris Elba came through on Tuesday.

It’s so simple and yet it tells us everything we need to know. Not only is Knuckles going to be in the upcoming sequel, but he’s going to be voiced by Elba. While we’ve currently heard no lines from Elba, there’s an obvious excitement about his casting. He’s going to bring an energy to Knuckles character that should work really well with Ben Schwartz returning as Sonic.

Now the question is how are they going to portray Knuckles? In the original Genesis games, he was a nemesis turned anti-hero before he became a hero alongside Sonic in the Adventure games. His character in a lot of the later games has been inconsistent, ranging from the serious straight man in Sonic Forces, to the unintelligent muscle head in Sonic Boom. We’ll just have to wait for a new trailer to find out more.