Paramount Pictures released the second official trailer for The Angry Birds Movie 3 on November 4. Sonic the Hedgehog makes a quick cameo in it, sprinting at full speed alongside Chuck in the middle of a wooded chase. The film, which puts Red through fatherhood before he has to save Bird Island again, opens only in theaters on December 23. Rovio now fronts the trailer on its official Angry Birds movie page, which lists the full returning and new voice cast.
Sonic drops in, and nobody explains why
The second official trailer shows the blue hedgehog running next to Chuck, voiced again by Josh Gad, for a single fast shot before cutting away. The trailer gives Sonic no dialogue and no explanation for how he ended up on Bird Island. It is a blink-and-you-miss-it appearance, but it is the first time a character from another game franchise has crossed into the Angry Birds films, which have otherwise kept their cast strictly to Rovio’s flock.
The rest of the trailer stays focused on the main story. Red, voiced by Jason Sudeikis, is now a father of three, and he spends the spot trying to rally his family for one more mission. Rachel Bloom returns as Silver, Red’s partner, while Danny McBride is back as Bomb. The three kids are voiced by Emma Myers, Walker Scobell, and Psalm West, with James Austin Johnson playing the family’s pet, Fuzzy. The trailer ends on Red’s exhausted plea to Silver to get their daughter to stop being “a little less gross at the table” before the family heads out to face a returning threat from the green pigs.
A crossover built on corporate overlap
SEGA bought Rovio, the studio behind Angry Birds, in 2023, and SEGA also owns Sonic the Hedgehog. On the film side, Paramount distributes The Angry Birds Movie 3, and Paramount is the studio behind the live-action Sonic films as well. One parent company owns both game franchises, and one distributor holds the movie rights to both. That overlap is what makes a crossover like this cheap to do and legally simple to clear.
It is also consistent with how SEGA has been handling its franchises since the Rovio deal. The company has moved quickly to put its characters next to each other, from a Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds year-two update to limited-time collaborations across its mobile games. A Sonic cameo in an Angry Birds film is the same logic applied to the big screen.
What changed between the first two films and this one
The first two Angry Birds movies, released in 2016 and 2019, were distributed by Sony, and neither featured characters from outside the Angry Birds universe. Paramount took over distribution for the third film, announcing in April 2025 that it would release the movie worldwide. That shift in distributor is the reason a Paramount-owned character like Sonic can appear in an Angry Birds film at all.
The production side stayed close to home. Rovio, SEGA, and Prime Focus Studios announced the film was in production at DNEG Animation back in June 2024. John Rice, who directed the first movie, returns to direct, with a screenplay by Thurop Van Orman, who also executive produces. The first trailer arrived in June 2026, four months before this second one.
Why the crossover matters for players
For the gaming audience, the cameo turns a family animated film into a two-franchise event. Angry Birds has not been the mobile juggernaut it was in the 2010s, and the third film is arriving nearly seven years after the last one. Borrowing Sonic, whose film series is one of the few game adaptations that reliably performs at the box office, gives The Angry Birds Movie 3 a recognizable hook beyond its own returning cast. It also previews the kind of cross-promotion SEGA has been doing since the acquisition, where its back catalog and its mobile stable are treated as one shared roster rather than separate silos. The film also lands in a busier stretch for game-to-screen projects, following the PUBG live-action series in development at Netflix.
Whether Sonic’s role is a one-scene gag or something larger is still unknown. The trailer does not confirm any lines for him, any story function, or whether Roger Craig Smith, the games’ Sonic, or Ben Schwartz, the films’ Sonic, is involved. That ambiguity is itself part of the marketing. A cameo that raises a question is a reason for fans to watch the film and argue about the answer until December 23.
Paramount is also releasing the next Sonic film, Sonic the Hedgehog 4, in 2027. An Angry Birds appearance now primes that audience for a Sonic-led film next year, while the Sonic name gives Angry Birds a boost it has not had since its mobile peak. The Angry Birds Movie 3 opens in theaters on December 23.
