Takashi Iizuka Reveals The Sonic Movie's Success Saved The Series

Sega Was Ready To Cancel The Entire Sonic Franchise Before The First Movie Sega/Paramount Published Sep 22, 2026, 6:10 AM EDT Josh Coulson is an editor at TheGamer covering breaking news on everything from colorful platformers to the latest Lego sets. Primarily a news writer since 2018, Josh has covered just about every major game from the past decade. Now an editor, their focus has shifted to being the leading affiliate expert at the site, building relationships between TheGamer and global brands including Mattel, Funko, and The Pokemon Company. Sign in to your TheGamer account Sonic has enjoyed some high highs and some incredibly low lows over the course of his 35-year career. Turns out some of those lows were so low that Sega considered abandoning their mascot entirely, and it was only the success of the first movie that saved Sonic from being sent out to pasture. Sega Almost Canceled Sonic Sega This comes from Takashi Iizuka, who has been at Sega since 1992 and worked on pretty much every single Sonic game in some capacity since Sonic 2. In a new interview with One More Game, Iizuka revealed things had been so bad for Sonic games through the 2010s that Sega was planning on canceling the series entirely. “There had been good times, and there had been bad times... during the worst times, I was told by the higher-ups that we should cancel the entire franchise,” Iizuka revealed. “I had to fight within the organization to keep the franchise as long as possible.” Iizuka doesn’t confirm when exactly he was told by Sega bosses that the studio might stop making Sonic games, but he does note that the release of the first movie was a turning point. “The biggest milestone for me was the first movie... that had been a great hit and definitely changed the course of this franchise.” The Success Of The Sonic Movies Fast forward six years and there’s an entire Sonic movie trilogy, with each new entry performing better than the last at the box office, and a fourth hitting theaters in February 2027. Wild to think that had that first film not hit in the way it did, not only would there not have been any more Sonic movies, but there might have been no more Sonic games either. You have to think that the backlash to Sonic’s original movie design must have had Iizuka more worried than just about anyone. The director knew deep down that if people hated this movie, that might be it for Sonic, and he'd be out of a job. It’s no wonder Sega and Paramount were happy to delay its release and completely overhaul the hedgehog’s design. Turns out the future of the entire Sonic franchise depended on it. The movie then made it out with weeks to spare before theaters around the world shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This isn’t the first time Iizuka has spoken publicly about Sega threatening to end the Sonic franchise. Earlier this year, the veteran game dev revealed Sonic was on the rocks when Iizuka moved to the US around ten years ago. That would have been coming off the heels of games like Sonic Boom and Sonic Lost World. Sonic Mania released shortly after; I wonder if the critical acclaim for that game gave Sonic more time until the movies came along a few years later and saved the series for good. Release Date February 12, 2020 Runtime 99 minutes Director Jeff Fowler Writers Worm Miller, Patrick Casey, Oren Uziel, Yuji Naka, Naoto Ohshima, Hirokazu Yasuhara