Not Many Ways to Interpret This
Knock, knock….#SonicMovie2 #Knuckles pic.twitter.com/N1PW5XaCEd
— Idris Elba (@idriselba) August 10, 2021
For the sake of being thorough, this isn’t an overt confirmation, but… come on. That fist is downright iconic. The intent here is plain as day, and the number of people freaking out in the posts’s comments have clearly gotten the message.
The casting choice certainly fits here – his role in the recently-released Suicide Squad movie proved as much. In that movie, he played one of the few serious characters, acting as the straight-man to help all the jokes land. It’s not hard to draw a comparison between his purpose there, and the role Knuckles plays in most Sonic the Hedgehog stories. Knuckles is a serious anchor in a storm of spiny blue snark.
And the interactions certainly won’t end there. He’ll either be fighting alongside Eggman (like in his first video-game appearance), or alongside Sonic (like in his more recent incarnations), he’s sure to have some kind of dynamic with Jim Carrey’s brand of chaos.
Idris Elba’s skillset seems to fit the role well. On the action side of things, we can see his performance in Pacific Rim and various Avengers titles. And for voice acting, we have Zootopia and Finding Dory to look at. In all cases, he’s been a great fit, and a character like Knuckles seems like a great place to tie those aspects together.
The previous Sonic the Hedgehog movie may have had its share of pre-release controversy, but the massively-successful release proved that SEGA’s characters can make it on the big screen. And with casting like this, it wouldn’t be surprising at all to see this sequel outperform the first one.