Knuckles is Vital to Sonic Universe, Says Director Jeff Fowler

Knuckles is just the start. According to the Sonic spinoff series’ director Jeff Fowler, there's a lot more to come of Idris Elba’s warrior echidna.

Speaking  to Men’s Journal on the red carpet premier for Knuckles, Fowler stressed the important of Knuckles to the ongoing Sonic-verse.

“Oh he’s very important, I don’t think we would have made a show about him if he wasn’t very important. We really had so much fun with him, working with him in Sonic 2. And Idris is such a talented actor, brings so much to the character.”

Introduced in 2022’s Sonic 2, Knuckles is Sonic’s baddie-turned-buddy, a talking echidna with earth-shattering power in his fists and a gladiatorial spirit in his soul.

Being entirely computer-generated, however, he does pose a problem for his castmates, who often had to act opposite a tennis ball stand-in. Fowler reveals how he overcame the challenge of mixing CGI characters with real ones.

“I come from visual effects and animation. I really like to storyboard, I really like to plan the scenes out…And then we can all sit down together and watch the scene and it just helps people understand what the end result is going to be because, obviously, when you’re filming, CGI characters are usually represented by a tennis ball.”

Related: Idris Elba Reveals What Happens If Knuckles Meets Super Mario

With the Sonic universe rapidly expanding, Knuckles is far from the only character from Sega’s smash hit video game series coming along for the ride. Keanu Reeves may voice Shadow The Hedgehog in Sonic 3.

After that could come Metal Sonic, Sonic’s love interest Amy Rose, and even lovable fishing feline Big the Cat. We can only dream.