The Angry Birds Movie 3 (that’s a real awkward way to name this movie, so I’m just gonna call it Angry Birds 3 from here on out) is the first of the animated adaptations to come from Paramount. The first two films were distributed by Sony, but Paramount acquired the rights to the third movie last year. I bring this up because that’s likely how we’ve ended up with a movie that, for some reason, includes a cameo from Sonic the Hedgehog, another video game character for whom Paramount owns the film rights.
We don’t really have much sense of what Sonic is doing in Angry Birds 3, but we did get our first glimpse of the speedy boy running alongside Chuck, the yellow angry bird voiced by Frozen actor Josh Gad. They’re laughing as they sprint through a wooded area, but why is he here? What could he possibly be doing running around in a world where birds launch themselves into structures to ruin pigs’ days?
Based on some of the groanworthy dialogue in the trailer, it seems like the movie will be a big collection of pop culture references, so it wouldn’t surprise me if this is just going to be a gag for the kiddos to point at which is then quickly discarded in a fleeting bit of brand synergy for Paramount. But hey, he could be a bigger part of the movie than that. Stranger things have happened, like Fox McCloud being a surprisingly prevalent character in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie earlier this year.
Angry Birds 3 is coming to theaters on December 23. Sorry, Sonic, I’ll likely be skipping this one, but I’ll see you on the big screen a few months later when Sonic the Hedgehog 4 comes to theaters on March 19.