Toru Nakahara Steers the Whole Slate
The person tying the three projects together is Toru Nakahara (中原徹), Sega's head producer for film and TV series, who produced the Sonic the Hedgehog film series. According to a report from Japanese games magazine Famitsu, Nakahara oversees every title in the Netflix deal, and the plan is for more Sega properties to follow.
Each project gets a genre built around the game it comes from. Crazy Taxi becomes a live-action comedy. Stranger Than Heaven becomes a live-action crime-action film. Sonic the Hedgehog becomes a kids' animated series.
In a comment published on Netflix's official site and quoted by Famitsu, Nakahara summed up the pitch for each. He wants the Sonic series to show off the cast's "cute but cool" appeal, the Crazy Taxi movie to be a joke-packed, full-throttle action comedy, and Stranger Than Heaven to deliver sharp action and emotionally charged drama.
Crazy Taxi Gets The Naked Gun Writers
Crazy Taxi is the first project out of the gate. Dan Gregor and Doug Mand, the screenwriting team behind the 2025 reboot of The Naked Gun, are writing the script. Neal H. Moritz and Toby Ascher of Original Film, Nakahara's producing partners on the Sonic films, are producing.
Moritz and Ascher said the film builds on Original Film's long-running relationship with Sega. They framed it as a movie for everyone who spent hours behind the wheel of the yellow cab on their Dreamcast, music cranked up, plowing through whatever stood between them and the next fare.
The timing lines up with a revival on the games side. Sega's new entry, Crazy Taxi: World Tour, is due in 2027 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2 and PC, and it's the game shown in Famitsu's images for the announcement. Famitsu's own gamescom 2026 coverage notes the new game is being made by the creator of the original Crazy Taxi.
Stranger Than Heaven and a New Sonic
Stranger Than Heaven is the more surprising pick, because the game isn't even out yet. Developed by RGG Studio, the team behind the Like a Dragon (Yakuza) series, it follows Makoto Daito, a Japanese-American outcast who builds a new life in Japan across 50 years starting in 1915. The game launches January 15, 2027 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC, and RGG Studio has positioned it as a distant prequel to Like a Dragon. Famitsu describes the film only as a live-action crime-action project, with no details on story or casting.
The Sonic project is the one most likely to interest animation fans, though it isn't a Japanese production in the traditional sense. Netflix's announcement describes it as a series for an upper-preschool audience, developed by Carlos Stevens and Nakahara. It's a separate show from Sonic Prime, the Netflix series that ran from 2022 to 2024.
Looking Ahead
No release windows, directors or cast have been announced for any of the three projects. Famitsu describes the Stranger Than Heaven film and the Sonic series as still in the planning stage, with Crazy Taxi the furthest along.
Since Netflix is the partner, all three should stream globally on the service when they arrive, though Netflix hasn't confirmed regional details. In the meantime, the games themselves are the next concrete dates on the calendar: Stranger Than Heaven on January 15, 2027, and Crazy Taxi: World Tour later in 2027. Sega says more of its properties will follow these three.