Sometimes Hollywood rumors tend to jump the gun, and with the ever-growing popularity of movies based on video games, that’s a trend that’s sure to make more and more gamers feel the sting when the rumors don’t pan out to be true. But a new rumor about the next film in the acclaimed Sonic the Hedgehog series only seeks to debunk another still-unconfirmed rumor that hit the internet about three months ago.

Namely, the newest item in the rumor mill is that Anakin Skywalker himself, actor Hayden Christensen, won’t be joining the cast of Sonic The Hedgehog 3 as the titular hero’s broody counterpart, Shadow.

Not Brining Balance To The Chaos?

The original rumors of Shadow’s casting had surfaced in January, when multiple outlets began reporting industry rumors stating that Christensen would be once again embracing his dark side to take on the role of Shadow. Still, months later, we still have no confirmation that the rumor is true, and this newest one, which comes from popular film critic John Campea, states that while the role has been filled, it won’t be Christensen’s voice we’re hearing coming out of Shadow’s mouth.

The part CGI, part live-action movie series follows human Tom Wachowski (played by James Marsden) as he discovers the heroic blue hedgehog, Sonic (Ben Schwartz) trapped in our world and aiding him against the evil machinations of Dr. Robotnik (Jim Carrey). The second movie throws Sonic’s pals Tails (Colleen O’Shaughnessy) and Knuckles (Idris Elba) into the mix too, and while all five of those actors are slated to return to the series for Sonic 3, the role of Shadow is still surprisingly missing from the film’s IMDB page.

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“People Will Be Happy” With The Casting

So, if Campea is correct that Christensen won’t be taking the role, who will be? According to Campea, the “people will be happy” with the choice of actor to protray Shadow, but he’s not really saying anything more than that to give us a clue of who it will be.

Still, the comment section is chock-full of theories, as comment sections tend to be. There seems to be some support for Kirk Thornton, who has been providing Shadow’s English language voice to the video games since 2010, starting with the Xbox360 Kinect game Sonic Free Riders. One potential fan, Jennifer Hernandez (a professional artist whose work includes the Sonic the Hedgehog comics), is keeping her hopes in check, commenting “Inb4 they pull a Sonic X and it’s just Ben Schwartz doing a deeper voice.”

Still, the role of Shadow should be a coveted one, even among the Hollywood elite. While it hasn’t reached the echelon that the The Super Mario Bros Movie has, the first two films have done very well in their own right. The first movie exceeeded $319 million in gross worldwide profits, placing it sixth on the list for films released in 2020. The second installment, released in 2022, fared a bit better grossing more than $405 million worldwide and breaking opening weekend records for a video game-based movie that would only be broken about a year later by the Mario movie. Since the third movie in the Sonic series is scheduled to hit theaters on December 20, we probably won’t have too long to wait the learn who will be officially taking the role of Shadow.

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