KNUCKLES Sets Viewership Record During First Week on Paramount+

Published: May 6, 2024

KNUCKLES Sets Viewership Record During First Week on Paramount+

By Movieguide® Contributor

The newly released KNUCKLES miniseries on Paramount+ has become an instant hit, drawing in a massive audience and boosting the SONIC franchise as a whole.

The series racked up over 4 million view time hours during its first week on the platform, already making it the most-viewed children and family show on the streamer.

“The SONIC THE HEDGEHOG fans came out in full force,” said Jeff Grossman, executive vice president of programming at Paramount+. “We’re so thrilled with the record-breaking performance of KNUCKLES and the incredible lift the whole Sonic universe has experienced following the KNUCKLES premiere.”

The other SONIC properties saw a massive boost with the release of the show, with viewership rising 278% over their daily averages.

Taking place after the events of SONIC 2, the show follows Knuckles the echidna (voiced by Idris Elba) as he takes on a new protégé: police deputy Wade Whipple. A portion of Movieguide®’s review reads:

KNUCKLES is an enjoyable miniseries for both general audiences and fans of the SONIC movies. The miniseries is funny, with imaginative set-pieces and appealing performances from Idris Elba and Adam Pally as Knuckles and Wade. Wade was minor comic relief in the SONIC movies, but his character is fleshed out in KNUCKLES. The miniseries promotes the virtues of teamwork, persistence and family. Like the SONIC movies, the miniseries has strong cartoon violence, some light swear words and a space ghost who mentors the team, like in STAR WARS. As a result, MOVIEGUIDE advises caution for older children.

The impressive success of the show is surely encouraging for the creators of the SONIC universe who are currently working on SONIC 3. Its release is slated for December of this year. The events of KNUCKLES will play into the trilogy’s third movie as the franchise builds towards bigger threats. Last month, it was revealed that Sonic’s evil doppelganger, Shadow, will feature in the movie, and Jim Carrey will return as Sonic’s perpetual nemesis, Dr. Robotnik.

Movieguide® previously reported:

A SONIC THE HEDGEHOG producer revealed that upcoming films will feature “AVENGERS-level events,” whereas KNUCKLES, the new SONIC spinoff series, will focus on character development.

“We got really excited about the idea of expanding our characters in our world into television, specifically, because it gives us a platform to really do character studies,” executive producer Toby Ascher said.

“We knew that, with Shadow coming into SONIC 3 and some of the bigger things that we want to do, the SONIC franchise on the movie side is going to be these AVENGERS-level events,” he continued. “They’re going to be these big, exciting stories that have a lot of different characters. And so what television did for us is it gave us time to go into some of the more supporting characters in depth and really build them out in cool ways.”