Paramount Pictures has unveiled a release date for its third Sonic the Hedgehog film, at the same time pushing back the date for its Untitled Smurfs Animated Musical. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 will open wide on December 20, 2024, with the newest Smurfs pic going wide on February 14, 2025, having previously been set to unspool on the date now claimed by the former film.

While Sonic will open against James Cameron’s Avatar 3, it’s not yet clear what kind of box-office competition the new Smurfs pic has in store.

Based on the beloved video game franchise from Sega, Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog franchise launched with a 2020 film of the same name, in which a small-town police officer (James Marsden) helped the titular blue hedgehog (Ben Schwartz) contend with Dr. Robotnik (Jim Carrey), an evil genius looking to make him the subject of his experiments. Jeff Fowler directed from a script by Pat Casey and Josh Miller, with the film ultimately grossing over $319.7M worldwide. The sequel hit theaters in the U.S. in April and outdid the gross of the original, at over $400M worldwide.

While multiple Smurfs films, based on the Belgian comics, have been made in recent memory—including The Smurfs (2011), The Smurfs 2 (2013), and Smurfs: The Lost Village (2017)—those projects hailed from Sony.

Paramount confirmed its plans to make a third Sonic film back in February, announcing its upcoming Smurfs project—centered on the blue humanoid creatures of the same name—back at CinemaCon 2021.

reported by deadline.com

Paramount Sets ‘Sonic The Hedgehog 3’ Release, Pushes Date For Smurfs Animated Musical