The Sonic the Hedgehog movie is more than likely getting a sequel, and some rad new fan art shows us how the blue rodent's pal Knuckles might appear in the potential follow-up film. Inspired by Sega's hit video game series of the same name, Sonic the Hedgehog turned out to be a big hit at the box office, setting the new record for the highest-grossing opening of any movie based on a video game property. Chances are, more characters from the video games will be appearing in the inevitable Sonic the Hedgehog 2, and many fans are probably hoping that will include the red anthropomorphic echidna known as Knuckles.

Artist Rafael Grassetti worked as the art director for the God of War franchise, specializing in designing characters for video games. After catching Sonic the Hedgehog, Grassetti some new Sonic character artwork on his Instagram account. "I had a great time with my son this past week with the release of the new movie so these are for him," the artist explains in the caption. Along with Sonic and Tails the Fox, Grassetti also revealed some art of how Knuckles the Echidna might look in Sonic the Hedgehog 2, and longtime fans of the game will find it pretty sweet. You can take a look at the image below.

If Knuckles does in fact show up in a Sonic the Hedgehog sequel, there's a good chance he'll look a lot like Grassetti's fan art depiction of the character. As most of us know, the original design for Sonic was rejected after fans caught a peek at him in the first movie trailer, which envisioned a much more freakish looking hedgehog than the one we got in the final product. Fortunately, the fan outcry convinced the studio to push the movie back to allow for a redesign, and the result has literally saved the movie. With fans clearly happy with Sonic looking much more like his video game counterpart, a similar approach will likely be taken with adapting any other characters from the games.

As of now, Paramount Pictures hasn't yet announced their plans to make Sonic the Hedgehog 2, but we can expect that to happen really any day now. The movie has sat solidly in the top spot at the box office for two weeks in a row, already earning over $200 million worldwide with a budget of less than $100 million. For the most part, filmgoers have been really enjoying the movie as well, giving it a 94% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes' Tomatometer. It's clear at this point that the studio has a big hit on their hands, and it's probably just a matter of time before Sonic is speeding his way back onto theaters for another big screen adventure.

Meanwhile, you can now catch Sonic the Hedgehog in theaters. A charming flick with a fantastic comedic performance by Jim Carrey, it's a great watch and I'd certainly recommend it to big fans of the video games. Hopefully the upcoming movies based on Mortal Kombat and Super Mario Bros. come out just as well. The Sonic the Hedgehog fan art comes to us from Raf Grassetti on Instagram, and you can also see his artwork of Sonic and Tails below.