A Sonic Show Built for the Youngest Fans
Carlos Stevens and Toru Nakahara, Sega's head producer for film and TV, are developing the new Sonic series. According to Oricon News, the Japanese entertainment news outlet that carried Sega's announcement, the show follows Sonic and his friends as heroes and is pitched at children around preschool age.
Sega describes the tone as thrilling and comedic but emotionally grounded. The stated target is kids who want a little edge and a little attitude, plus the feeling of "that's my crew" when they watch Sonic's friends in action. Nakahara summed up his goal for the series as showing off Sonic and company's "cute but cool" appeal.
This is a separate project from Sonic Prime, the Netflix animated series that ran for three seasons. Sega notes that all three seasons of Sonic Prime are still streaming exclusively on Netflix. No animation studio, cast, or episode count has been announced for the new show.
Crazy Taxi and Stranger Than Heaven Go Live-Action
The partnership's first project is a live-action Crazy Taxi comedy film. Dan Gregor and Doug Mand, the writing duo behind the 2025 reboot of The Naked Gun, are writing the script. Neal H. Moritz and Toby Ascher of Original Film, the producers behind the Sonic the Hedgehog movie series, produce alongside Nakahara.
Crazy Taxi debuted in arcades in 1999. Players take the wheel as a rule-breaking cab driver racing passengers to their destinations against the clock, jumping ramps and weaving through traffic to rack up tips. Sega is also releasing a new game in the series, Crazy Taxi: World Tour, in 2027. Moritz and Ascher said the film is for everyone who spent hours tearing around in the yellow cab on the Dreamcast with the music cranked up.
The third project is a live-action film based on Stranger Than Heaven, the upcoming game from RGG Studio, the team behind the Like a Dragon (Yakuza) series. The story is set in early 20th-century Japan and follows a man who arrives from overseas with nothing and climbs from penniless outsider to feared yakuza and entertainment-industry power broker. Sega says further details on the film are not yet public. Nakahara produces.
What Sega and Netflix Are Saying
Sega President and COO Shuji Utsumi said the company has long respected how carefully Netflix handles productions across formats, and that Sega wants each adaptation to preserve the individual character of its source game. He added that Netflix shares that goal.
Brandon Riegg, Netflix's VP of Nonfiction and Transmedia, framed the deal around what great games already have: beloved characters, worlds fans know deeply, and passionate fandoms. He pointed out that the three titles come from different eras of Sega's catalog, and said Netflix aims to honor what fans love while bringing the games to new audiences.
Nakahara laid out a one-line pitch for each project: cute-but-cool heroics for Sonic, a joke-packed, over-the-top action comedy for Crazy Taxi, and sharp action with high-stakes drama for Stranger Than Heaven.
Looking Ahead
None of the three projects has a release window yet. The Sonic series and both films are in development, and Sega has not named an animation studio or voice cast for the preschool show. All three are Netflix projects, so international fans can expect them to stream on Netflix when they arrive, though no regional rollout details have been announced.
In the meantime, all three seasons of Sonic Prime are available on Netflix worldwide. On the games side, Crazy Taxi: World Tour is scheduled for 2027, and the Oricon report notes that Stranger Than Heaven is still ahead of its own release.