Sonic the Hedgehog 3 director reveals that one of his first jobs in the industry was animating Shadow for a video game – and now he's bringing him to the big screen

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Sonic the Hedgehog 3 director Jeff Fowler has shared a fun, full circle career moment – and it involves Shadow.

"One of my first jobs in the VFX industry was animating this amazing character for his first #SEGA standalone video game," Fowler tweetedtweeted in reference to 2005's Shadow the Hedgehog, alongside two images of the black and red hedgehog. He returns to the director's chair after helming the first two movies in the video game adaptation series. "Twenty years later, I could not feel more HONORED to bring SHADOW to the big screen in #SonicMovie3."

After a brief tease in the Sonic the Hedgehog 2 post-credits scene, Shadow is making his big-screen debut in the upcoming threequel. He'll be voiced by Keanu Reeves, who joins a voice cast that also includes Ben Schwartz as Sonic, Colleen O'Shaughnessey as Tails, and Idris Elba as Knuckles, alongside James Marsden and Jim Carrey in live-action roles as Sheriff Tom Wachowski and Dr. Ivo Robotnik (and Gerald Robotnik, Ivo's grandfather, as revealed in the recently released trailer…).

According to producer Toby Ascher, the film is "probably the most exciting thing that we’ve done in the franchise." He previously told GamesRadar+, "It’s going to be this giant, fun, incredible movie that obviously takes a lot from Sonic Adventure 2 and some of the games that I know the core Sonic Team grew up loving." Sonic Adventure 2 is where Shadow made his first appearance back in 2001.

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 speeds onto the big screen on December 20. In the meantime, get up to speed with the rest of the year's biggest movie release dates at a glance.