I don't think many people were expecting Paramount's Sonic movie to be any good this time last year, but no one anticipated that it would break US box office records and become the highest grossing movie based on a video game. Maybe it was the fact that Paramount went and redesigned Sonic after the initial backlash from fans that got people interested, or maybe it was because the movie actually had decent writing,  some good performances (especially from Jim Carrey) and it managed to balance staying true enough to the source material to please fans of the series while changing just enough to be accessible and interesting to newcomers. (Spoilers for the Sonic movie ahead!)

As usual, success warrants a sequel, and the movie made sure to keep things open-ended so it can introduce more characters and ideas inspired by the historic franchise. Paramount have formally announced the name and logo for the sequel, which is...

Sonic the Hedgehog 2, of course. No interesting subtitles to give us a clue as to what it's about, but those two tails on the 2 should be recognizable to people with only a passing knowledge of the games. Sonic's trusty pal Tails the Fox appeared during the first movie's obligatory post-credits scene, searching for him for an unexplained reason. Meanwhile, Dr. Robotnik ended up in a shroom-filled landscape looking a lot less like the singer from 3Teeth and a lot more like the Eggman we know and love, swearing to get his hands on that blasted hedgehog.

Now, I'm no expert on Sonic lore (in fact if you told me Sonic games followed a consistent canon that'd be news to me) but I know at least in the games Sonic was never raised by an owl named Longclaw, and that rings in the game definitely don't give you the power to teleport to other dimensions. Still, I found this new backstory kinda interesting until the reverse isekai happened. If the sequel is gonna expand on that, I think I have an idea how they'll do it.

Remember those mysterious "bad guys" who attacked Longclaw and young Sonic, before she gave him a ring and sent him to the human world for his safety? 

Take a good look at them and you can see they have spikes, kinda like that of an animal similar to a hedgehog, but also dreadlocks. Get it yet? If not, here's a closer look at one of them.

Hmm, those spikes on his knuckles look familiar. Could he be a reference to a character from one of the games? Real fans of the series, post your speculation in the comments!

But for real, this is a clan of echidnas; as in Knuckles the echidna. Specifically, the tribe Knuckles comes from, fittingly called the Knuckles Clan. Knuckles himself probably wasn't in the first film unless he's suddenly much older than Sonic, but I'm sure we're gonna see him alongside Tails and Sonic in the sequel, as well as more locations inspired by the games and a more crazy Robotnik with crazier machines. We got a while to wait yet, so that's plenty of time to speculate.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is out on April 8 2022. Did you like the first movie? Are you looking forward to the next one? What are you hoping to see in it? Sound off below!