Sonic movie director reveals why *that* character wasn’t introduced until the post-credits

The blue blur wasn’t the only iconic video game character fans were hoping to see turn up in the Sonic movie. Unfortunately, you had to stick around to the Sonic post-credits scene to see one of his furry friends fly on to the scene – and director Jeff Fowler recently told GamesRadar+ why he decided against introducing that particular character earlier in the movie.

Spoilers for the Sonic movie follow…

“We really just wanted to nail Sonic. With this being an origin movie, and to spend every minute to get the audience to fall in love with Sonic, it can be tricky when you have too many characters to juggle in terms of the story,” Fowler says of the decision to include Tails not in the movie itself, but as a brief teaser in the post-credits.

Tails, who is shown flying through a ring portal and towards Green Hills, Montana, might not be the only one of Sonic’s squad to show up in future instalments, however.

“There’s so many great characters in Sonic’s universe and to be able to tease and say, ‘Hey, we love these characters too.’ We might not have gotten to them in this movie but we absolutely would love to bring them into the fold and tell some stories with them,” Fowler teases.

Fowler may have even given a brief hint at what could come down the line. His plan for potential sequels could involve “bringing in more of the characters that fans would love to see. In designing this film, the best approach was to go back to 1991 and that first game: Sonic vs. Robotnik. Then, in terms of the lineage of the movies, you could look at what they did with those early games and that provides a great blueprint for future stories.”

If Tails’ debut is a nod towards the character’s own arrival in the second Sonic game on the Sega Genesis, we could be looking at Knuckles following on closely as part of that “blueprint.”

For now, we’ve got Sonic and Tails, just like the good old days. Beyond that? Maybe look towards Sonic’s back catalogue for some Big ideas. Hint, hint.

From nods to the games to a memetastic mention, here are some of the biggest Sonic Easter eggs.