Another name is returning to the eagerly awaited Sonic the Hedgehog sequel. Tom Holkenborg, otherwise known by his stage name as Junkie XL, is returning to score the sequel to the 2020 hit! He’s returning to his role in production along with director Jeff Fowler.

Holkenborg has a history with both film and videogame soundtrack composing. In video games, he has written music for such games as Destroy All Humans!, The Sims 2: Nightlife, and Need for Speed: Underground. In film, he’s composed the scores for such action-packed movies as Mad Max: Fury Road, Deadpool, Alita: Battle Angel, and Godzilla vs Kong. When composing for Sonic the Hedgehog, Holkenborg took inspiration from Masato Nakamura’s original score of the 1991 game that the blue blur made his big debut in. Looks like we’ll get more of that in the upcoming sequel, but possibly with inspiration from the scores of Sonic 2, Sonic 3, and Sonic & Knuckles.

Pat Casey and Josh Miller are returning as writers for the sequel’s screenplay. John Whittington is joining them for the screenplay for the sequel as well. Whittington’s previous works include The Lego Batman Movie, The Lego Ninjago Movie, and two episodes of Green Eggs and Ham. Also returning as producers for the sequel are Neal H. Moritz, Toby Ascher and Toru Nakahara. Ben Schwartz is, of course, returning to voice the infamous blue hedgehog. Joining him as Sonic’s fellow animal companions are Colleen O’Shaughnessey as Miles “Tails” Prower the two-tailed fox, and Idris Elba as Knuckles the Echidna.

The original 2020 film has a production that has gone down in infamy, with designs redone, fan reactions, and an unforgettable performance by Jim Carrey. The rocky road to Sonic’s big screen reveal landed in a $319.7 million worldwide income, beating out Marvel’s decade-long streak (2010-2019) of having the highest-grossing superhero genre film of the year. While the film has a critic’s score of 63%, its audience score currently rests at a much higher 93%.

Ever since the film’s surprise success, along with the surprising cameo of Tails at the end, fans have been chomping at the bit for any news of the planned sequel. It wasn’t until The 2021 Game Awards that we finally got our first trailer. Paired with upbeat music, we got to see the return of Sonic, Robotnik, and our first look at Tails and Knuckles. While no plot details have been released about the film yet, the trailer consists of quite a few easter eggs showcasing throwbacks to the popular 1998 Dreamcast game, Sonic Adventure. We also got a few shots of the legendary chaos emerald, which served as a major plot device all through the Sonic franchise. The chaos emerald especially was always linked to the character of Knuckles.

Whatever ends up happening in this film, fans new and old to the infamous hedgehog have something to be excited about. With a lot of the old team back, and a lot of promising new faces, this is shaping up to be an exciting movie. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is set for release in spring 2022! News of Tom Holkenborg's return comes to us from Film Music Reporter.