Like it or not and believe it or not, a Sonic the Hedgehog movie has been confirmed with an official release date of November 15, 2019.

Sonic has been around since 1991, but its taken over two and a half decades for a movie based on Sega’s mascot to come to fruition. Sony initially held the film rights for the blue hedgehog, but Paramount Pictures obtained those rights in a deal late last year.

The movie is reportedly going to be a mix of CGI and live action and doesn’t have any big names attached to it as of yet.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Jeff Fowler will be serving as director for the film. Fowler worked on the film adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are, but has relatively little experience in Hollywood according to his IMDb page.

Tim Miller, the director of the Deadpool movie, will serve as executive producer for the film and the script will be handled by Pat Casey and Josh Miller, both of whom are credited as creators and writers for the canceled Fox animated series, Golan the Insatiable.

This news comes right off the heels of the announcement of a new Mario movie. On January 31, Nintendo confirmed that they were partnering with Illumination, the studio behind the Despicable Me and Minions franchise, to make a new Mario movie.

Shigeru Miyamoto will be co-producing the film, so hopefully it will be a faithful adaptation of the Mario series, unlike the horrid Super Mario Bros. movie from 1993. RIP Bob Hoskins and Dennis Hopper.

A Sonic movie might have some potential. After all, some of the Sonic cartoons of the past were relatively well received, Sonic Boom and the old 1993 Sonic the Hedgehog in particular. Then again, there’ve been some pretty bad Sonic cartoons too, like Sonic X, Sonic Underground and of course the notorious and memetastic Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. 

On top of that, movies based on video games have always had a bad reputation amongst gamers and non-gamers alike. As mentioned earlier, even Mario fell victim to the video game movie curse. Considering Sonic’s recent track record of disappointing games, this might not be the best time for a movie.

Other than Sonic Mania, most of the recent games in the franchise have been met with decidedly negative reception.

Still, it’s a little early to give up on Sonic just yet. We’ll hold out hope at least until the first trailer arrives.