We’re about five months away from Sonic the Hedgehog 3 hitting theaters on December 20th. It’s been three months since Paramount gave fans a private preview of footage from the film in April, but after months of waiting and speculation over when a public trailer would drop, most fans have yet to see a single image from the film. However, two merchandise leaks have given fans a glimpse of Shadow the Hedgehog, Keanu Reeves’ rival to the blue blur. They’re not great, but they’re more than Paramount has given us. One is an image of an action figure that will hit toy stores closer to the movie’s release, while another shows what he’ll actually look like in the movie… well, half of him at least. See, it’s a bucket of popcorn.
Shadow made his live-action film debut during the post-credits scene of Sonic the Hedgehog 2, but he was unconscious until the final shot, which showed his eyes opening and lighting up as he began to manipulate chaos energy. To date, most audiences have not seen him in action as Paramount has not released a trailer. But an image of a popcorn bucket for the film that will be available in theaters is available. circulating online alongside others for movies like Wicked and Moana 2. Paramount reportedly removed videos showing the movie, so it appears to be legit.
The bucket appears to be hexagonal in shape, with three of its sides featuring what appears to be the Sonic 3 logo, Knuckles, and Shadow. Although the hedgehog is barely visible in the photo, Cage, the Games YouTuber featured it in a video that was deleted. He later confirmed on X (formerly Twitter) that the video was removed because it was subject to copyright infringement.
Another glimpse of Shadow’s cinematic look came from a photo of a talking Sonic figure for the third film. The toy’s box includes five inch action figure images that will be available for purchase, including Sonic, Tails, Robotnik, and Shadow. While you can only see his face, it’s more than we’ve seen of him elsewhere.
While Paramount has remained tight-lipped about Sonic the Hedgehog 3, it is a major part of Sega’s Year of Shadow celebration of the character. The other major project is the upcoming Sonic X Shadow Generations game, which is a remaster of the 2011 platformer Sonic Generations with a new story centered around Shadow. As the base game did for Sonic, the Shadow section will include remixes of levels from his past appearances, including Sonic Adventure 2, his 2005 title, and Sonic the Hedgehog (2006).