Paramount's 6-Part Spinoff To A $1.2 Billion Franchise Is An Easy Weekend Binge
Mads Misasi is a part-time entertainment journalist and full-time marketing content creator. Before joining the ScreenRant team they wrote for TellTaleTV for 9 years working their way up from contributor to Associate Editor. TV has been a passion of theirs since a very young age. Mads typically watches all of the things, especially dramas and sitcoms.
Sign in to your ScreenRant account
Turning a successful movie franchise into an interconnected universe can sometimes make keeping up with it feel more like homework than entertainment. Between sequels, spinoffs, and streaming exclusives, even devoted fans can easily decide certain installments aren't essential.
That makes a franchise-based six-episode miniseries particularly appealing. Rather than demanding another two-hour trip to the theater or setting up several future projects, Paramount's Sonic the Hedgehog spinoff, Knuckles, tells a relatively self-contained story that can easily be finished over a weekend.
Sonic the Hedgehog's live-action cinematic franchise has grown considerably since the first movie arrived in 2020. While the films have grown increasingly ambitious, bringing more Sonic video game characters and mythology to the big screen, this smaller adventure embraces something considerably stranger.
Knuckles takes place between Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Sonic the Hedgehog 3, but viewers shouldn't expect another Sonic movie stretched across six episodes. Instead, the Paramount+ series pairs Knuckles (Idris Elba) with Adam Pally's Wade Whipple, a movie-original character first introduced in 2020's Sonic the Hedgehog for an unexpectedly goofy side adventure that often feels closer to an action sitcom than a traditional superhero spinoff.
Knuckles Is A Slightly Different Take On The Sonic Franchise
Despite taking place in the same universe, Knuckles doesn't really attempt to recreate the scale of the live-action Sonic the Hedgehog movies. The series still contains villains and elaborate fight sequences, and Knuckles continues to demonstrate exactly why punching things remains his preferred solution to most problems. However, those elements become secondary surprisingly quickly. Knuckles' real appeal comes from pairing its incredibly serious Echidna warrior with Wade Whipple, arguably one of the least serious characters the franchise could have chosen as his protégé.
Knuckles approaches training Wade with the same intensity he would bring to an actual battle. Wade, meanwhile, is primarily concerned with winning a bowling tournament and proving himself against his estranged father. Somehow, the series treats both objectives as almost equally important.
From the Coin-Op Era to the Cloud · Eight Questions How Well Do You Know Video Games? “It’s dangerous to go alone. Take this.”
🎮Arcade EraInsert coin
🎲The ConsolesPlug & play
📱HandheldsGame Boy era
💻PC GamingSteam & mod scene
🏆Esports & OnlineGG, well played
01
In November 1972, a small Sunnyvale start-up named Atari released the arcade game widely credited as the industry’s first commercial blockbuster. Designed by engineer Allan Alcorn as a training exercise, its prototype famously stopped working in a Sunnyvale bar because the coin box was overstuffed with quarters. Name the game.
✓ Correct! Pong, designed by Allan Alcorn at Atari (founded by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney). The Sunnyvale bar Andy Capp’s reportedly called Atari to complain the prototype had broken; when Alcorn arrived, the cabinet was fine — the coin box was simply jammed full. Pong went on to sell over 8,000 cabinets and effectively created the consumer video-game industry. Bushnell’s earlier Computer Space (1971) is the very first commercial coin-op video game, but it sold poorly and didn’t spark the boom.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Pong. Space Invaders is Taito’s 1978 hit. Asteroids is Atari’s own 1979 vector-graphics smash. Computer Space (1971) is technically the first commercial coin-op video game ever — designed by Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell — but it flopped at retail. Pong is the 1972 game that proved the industry could actually work.
02
The North American video-game crash of 1983 wiped out 97% of the industry’s revenue almost overnight. The two scapegoat releases — a rushed E.T. tie-in famously buried in a New Mexico landfill, and an unplayable port of Pac-Man — ran on the same now-iconic console. Whose console was it?
✓ Correct! Atari, specifically the Atari 2600 (originally the VCS). Howard Scott Warshaw famously developed E.T. in five weeks to make a Christmas 1982 deadline; over 4 million unsold copies were eventually buried in the Alamogordo, New Mexico landfill in 1983 — later confirmed as real archaeology by a 2014 dig. The crash gutted the American console market until Nintendo launched the NES in 1985, with Japan taking over from there.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Atari (the 2600). Magnavox’s Odyssey was the very first home console (1972) but had been long-superseded by 1983. ColecoVision and Intellivision were 2600 competitors that also got hit by the crash, but the headline disasters — E.T. and the Pac-Man port — were Atari’s, and Atari was the dominant brand whose collapse defined the era.
03
After the 1983 crash, Nintendo’s Famicom (released in Japan in 1983) was rebranded as the NES for North America in 1985. The launch was anchored by a single Shigeru Miyamoto-designed pack-in title that became the genre-defining 2D platformer and one of the best-selling games of all time. Name it.
✓ Correct! Super Mario Bros. (September 1985 in Japan as the Famicom version, October 1985 in North America bundled with the NES). Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka’s 8-bit blueprint for the genre — running, jumping, scrolling, secrets — sold over 40 million copies and was the standard pack-in NES title (sometimes packed alongside Duck Hunt on the Zapper bundle). The Legend of Zelda came in 1986; Super Mario Bros. is the title that defined the launch.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Super Mario Bros. Donkey Kong (1981) is Miyamoto’s arcade breakthrough — and Mario’s actual debut as “Jumpman.” Duck Hunt was bundled with the Zapper-pack version of the NES alongside Super Mario Bros. The Legend of Zelda came a year later (1986). The headline NES launch title is Super Mario Bros.
04
As of 2024 the best-selling single video game of all time has cleared 300 million copies sold across every platform you can imagine — far ahead of every other franchise entry on the list. The studio behind it was bought by Microsoft in 2014 for $2.5 billion. Name the game.
✓ Correct! Minecraft — over 300 million copies sold, with Markus “Notch” Persson’s Mojang acquired by Microsoft for $2.5 billion in November 2014. The game launched in alpha in 2009, hit full release in November 2011, and has since shipped on every major platform from PC to Switch to phones to PlayStation. GTA V is the second-best-selling game ever (~200M+) and the most profitable entertainment product of all time. Tetris versions vary by counting method but together comfortably exceed 500M; the question specifies a single game, where Minecraft leads.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Minecraft. Tetris is technically larger across all versions combined but is fragmented across dozens of separately-counted SKUs. GTA V is the second-best-selling discrete game (~200M+) and the most profitable entertainment product ever made. Wii Sports moved 82M but mostly as a pack-in. The single best-selling game ever is Minecraft.
05
A 28-year-old Shigeru Miyamoto was given a salvage job in 1981: convert thousands of unsold Radar Scope cabinets into a profitable game. The result was an arcade smash that introduced both a barrel-throwing antagonist and a moustachioed protagonist named “Jumpman” — later renamed Mario. Name this 1981 arcade game.
✓ Correct! Donkey Kong (1981). Nintendo of America had crates of unsold Radar Scope cabinets sitting in a New Jersey warehouse; Miyamoto’s pitch — a Popeye-inspired story about a giant ape and a damsel in distress — was retrofitted into the existing hardware. The game made $280 million in its first two years, single-handedly saved Nintendo of America, and gave the world both Donkey Kong and Mario (originally just called “Jumpman”). It also drove a Universal Studios trademark lawsuit over alleged King Kong similarity, which Nintendo won.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Donkey Kong. Mario Bros. is the 1983 arcade follow-up where Mario gets his name and his plumber brother Luigi. Popeye (1982) is Miyamoto’s next game — the IP he’d originally wanted for what became Donkey Kong. Galaga (1981) is by Namco, not Nintendo. Miyamoto’s breakout game is Donkey Kong.
06
Sony’s original PlayStation launched in Japan in December 1994 and went on to dominate the fifth console generation, selling over 100 million units. The console was originally conceived as a CD-ROM add-on for another company’s console, until that partner publicly humiliated Sony at CES 1991 by suddenly switching to Philips. Which spurned company drove Sony into the console business?
✓ Correct! Nintendo. The two companies had jointly developed a SNES CD-ROM add-on (codenamed “Play Station,” with the space) for years. At CES 1991, Sony announced the partnership on day one; on day two, Nintendo’s Howard Lincoln walked on stage and revealed Nintendo had quietly switched to Philips. Sony executive Ken Kutaragi convinced his board to use the prototype to build their own standalone console. The result, three years later, was the PlayStation — which buried the SNES’s successor, the N64, in third place that generation. One of the most expensive corporate snubs in business history.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Nintendo. Sega had its own CD-ROM add-on (the Sega CD, 1991). Atari was a fading competitor. Panasonic eventually shipped the 3DO (1993), but Sony’s entry into hardware was specifically driven by the Nintendo partnership collapse at CES 1991 — one of the most consequential corporate breakups in the industry’s history.
07
Bungie’s Halo: Combat Evolved (November 2001) is the textbook system-seller — the FPS that proved console first-person shooters could rival the PC, sold five million copies for an unproven new console, and turned its publisher into a permanent fixture in console gaming. For which 2001-launching console was it a launch title?
✓ Correct! The original Xbox — Microsoft’s first home console, launched November 15, 2001 in North America. Microsoft acquired Bungie in June 2000 specifically to make Halo an Xbox-exclusive launch title (it had originally been pitched as a Mac/PC RTS). Halo: Combat Evolved sold over 5 million copies, became the Xbox’s system-seller, and made the franchise a permanent Microsoft pillar through Halo 2’s Xbox Live revolution and beyond.
✗ Wrong. The answer is the original Xbox. PlayStation 2 launched a year earlier (October 2000). The GameCube launched within days of the Xbox in November 2001 but never had Halo. The Dreamcast (1998) was discontinued in early 2001. Halo’s home is the Xbox — its existence as an exclusive is the entire reason Microsoft bought Bungie.
08
Steam — the dominant digital storefront for PC gaming — launched in September 2003, initially mocked as a glorified DRM patcher for Counter-Strike. It now hosts over 100,000 games and reportedly takes 50–70% of all PC game sales. Which Bellevue, Washington studio (also creator of Half-Life and Portal) launched and runs Steam?
✓ Correct! Valve, founded in 1996 by ex-Microsoft executives Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington. Steam launched in September 2003 mainly as a way to deliver patches for Counter-Strike, with Half-Life 2 (2004) the first commercial release tied to it. Newell’s repeatedly-voiced philosophy — that piracy is fundamentally a service problem — turned Steam into the dominant PC platform and made Valve, a privately-held company, one of the most valuable per-employee firms in technology.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Valve. Blizzard runs Battle.net (Diablo, World of Warcraft, Hearthstone). id Software is the original Doom/Quake studio, now owned by Microsoft via the Bethesda/ZeniMax acquisition. Epic Games runs the competing Epic Games Store (launched 2018) alongside Fortnite and Unreal Engine. Steam — and Half-Life, Portal, Left 4 Dead, Counter-Strike, Dota 2 — is Valve.
High Score Recorded · Final Tally Your Gamer Standing
🎮
/ 8
Speedrun champion — or still on the tutorial?
That dynamic makes Knuckles feel much closer to an action sitcom than a traditional franchise spinoff. Much of the humor comes from watching Knuckles attempt to apply his warrior upbringing to completely ordinary human situations, while Wade rarely questions how ridiculous their adventure has become.
The show's smaller scale also works in its favor. An episode revolving around Knuckles and Wade hiding out with Wade's family can spend considerably more time on awkward conversations and absurd character interactions than a Sonic movie could reasonably afford. Even the overarching journey eventually leads the pair to Reno for the National Bowling Championship. Considering the movies have dealt with ancient artifacts, world-threatening villains, and increasingly powerful characters, making bowling one of this spinoff's biggest concerns feels wonderfully inconsequential.
That doesn't mean Knuckles completely abandons the action audiences expect from the franchise. Instead, those sequences punctuate what is ultimately a very strange buddy comedy about two characters developing an unexpectedly sincere friendship. Because Knuckles isn't responsible for carrying the larger franchise forward, the series gets away with being weird. That freedom becomes even more apparent once its guest stars, stranger jokes, and one particularly unbelievable musical sequence enter the picture.
Knuckles Has Some Surprising Guest Stars & Offbeat Jokes
Even though it's a smaller spinoff, Knuckles isn't lacking recognizable names. Oscar nominee Stockard Channing and The Righteous Gemstones' Edi Patterson play Wade's mother and sister, while The Princess Bride icon Cary Elwes appears as his estranged father. Back to the Future's Christopher Lloyd even voices Pachacamac, the Echidna elder who becomes Knuckles' spiritual guide.
The impressive cast only makes Knuckles' strange comedic choices more entertaining. The show often feels as though its writers were allowed to follow almost any joke to its natural conclusion, regardless of how ridiculous it became.
Nothing demonstrates that better than episode 4, “The Flames of Disaster.” Wade experiences Knuckles' history through an elaborate rock opera featuring Julian Barratt's Jack Sinclair, puppets, deliberately theatrical sets, and even vocals from Michael Bolton. It's difficult to imagine anything remotely similar fitting naturally into one of the Sonic movies.
Yet, that's precisely why the episode works. A theatrical movie carrying the expectations of a billion-dollar franchise probably can't stop everything for an extended musical explaining Knuckles' traumatic backstory. A 23-minute streaming episode, however, can choose to do just that.
The series boasts plenty of similar examples throughout, from Wade's dysfunctional family dynamics to the seriousness surrounding a national bowling tournament. Knuckles commits to jokes that would probably become brief gags in the movies and instead turns them into entire storylines.
That willingness to get weird ultimately makes the series more memorable than a straightforward Sonic the Hedgehog spinoff might have been. At only six episodes, Knuckles is short enough to finish in one weekend, but bizarre enough that some of its biggest swings might stick with viewers considerably longer.
Knuckles is available on Paramount+.
- Release Date
- 2024 - 2024-00-00
- Network
- Paramount+
- Directors
- Carol Banker, Jeff Fowler, Jorma Taccone
- Writers
- Brian Schacter
- Franchise(s)
- Sonic the Hedgehog
-
Knuckles the Echidna (voice)
-
Wade Whipple
Knuckles follows Knuckles the Echidna after the events of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 as he takes Wade Whipple under his wing to train him in the ancient ways of the Echidna warrior. Their unconventional mentor-student journey soon turns into a cross-country adventure when a dangerous group of treasure hunters targets a powerful relic tied to Knuckles' past.
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.