Fans of the Sonic the Hedgehog movies were surprised to hear news on April 15 about Shadow’s voice actor

According to an article from The Hollywood Reporter on April 15, Keanu Reeves will be playing the character of Shadow the Hedgehog in the movie “Sonic the Hedgehog 3.” This happened after rumors involving the actor’s inclusion in the movie and after a preview of the movie at CinemaCon this past month.

In the games Shadow the Hedgehog is an anti-hero, usually doing whatever it takes to accomplish his goals, and while he does dislike humanity he still vows to protect the world from danger, according to an article about the character on Wikipedia.

English teacher Rob Hardwick is a fan of Keanu Reeves, and he said he might see the movie in theaters because of Reeves. “I’m always excited for Keanu in anything,” Hardwick said. “He’s got a lot of diversity in the roles that he plays. I think it’d be interesting to see the breadth of his acting ability.” 

Hardwick is a fan of many of Reeves’s movies, including “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure”, the John Wick series, and “The Matrix”. Hardwick shared his opinion on why those movies work so well. “So like, ‘Bill and Ted’ is a comedy. And you never really see Keanu Reeves in a comedy role nowadays. And then ‘The Matrix’ was kind of this first serious movie where I didn’t see him as like, this surfer dude. And it had more of an intimidating, ominous, like, sci-fi dark setting.” 

Hardwick was also a fan of the first Sonic the Hedgehog movie, stating, “Yeah I loved it, it was pretty good.” He expects Sonic the Hedgehog 3 to be a “fun time, entertaining, not too deep hopefully.”

Stagg student Alonzo Gregory is a fan of the first two Sonic the Hedgehog movies. His expectation for the third movie is a lot less optimistic, saying that he thinks it’ll be “whack,” and is only really excited for Shadow to appear. He also stated that he thinks Keanu would make “a good Shadow voice,” but that Shadow “deserves a better voice [actor].”

What do you think about the announcement of the film and the addition of Keanu Reeves? Let us know in the comments. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 releases in theaters on December 20, 2024.