You’ve got to feel sorry for Tails, who made a fan-pleasing cameo appearance during the credits of last year’s Sonic the Hedgehog, only to be completely ignored and overlooked as the rumors and speculation for the in-development sequel have almost entirely focused on Knuckles.
Of course, at least some of that has to do with the fact that the stinger confirmed that Tails would play a major role in the second installment, while the scarlet echidna has yet to be officially announced by the studio. However, it’s certainly looking like a foregone conclusion that he’ll appear, and following months of reports detailing how Knuckles would factor into the story, the news began making the rounds that Jason Momoa had been formally offered the role.
Up until then, Dwayne Johnson had been one of the frontrunners, with fans backing him to voice the video game favorite. Momoa is hardly a bad replacement, though, and they both fit the same bill of being huge, handsome jacked dudes with strong ties to Hawaii that are a lot more softly spoken than you’d expect given their massive frames.
Insider Daniel Richtman is now reporting that Johnson was indeed the first name to be offered the part (which WGTC first told you last year), but he turned it down, presumably due to scheduling conflicts arising from the fact that he always seems to have a dozen things on the go at once. The tipster goes onto say that Paramount still want him involved in some fashion, and based on a throwaway joke from the first movie, perhaps they should look into the idea of having him cameo in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 as the President of the United States, creating a bit of cross-branding synergy with NBC’s Young Rock in the process, which uses the same concept as its framing device.
