As more characters join the Sonic the Hedgehog film series, fans have been curious about when their favorite big cat, Big the Cat, will appear.
Speaking to Agency in conjunction with the release of Sonic the Hedgehog 3, the film series' writing duo, Pat Casey and Josh Miller, revealed that a Big the Cat cameo had actually been written for the previous film, just to Leave it in the editing room.
(We should add that there are no spoilers for the new movie here.)
In Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Big the Cat would have appeared in skeletal form when Sonic went through a cave. Inside it, viewers would have been able to quickly glimpse Big's decomposed body. Dark.
Still, confusingly, this might not have been the one Big the Cat fans know and love, the duo continued, which is perhaps why the sequence never appeared on screen.
“In a draft of Sonic 2, when they went through the snowy mountains to the cave, we had a little bit, because Sonic 2 was kind of like Indiana Jones,” Casey said.
“Indiana Jones, it's a trope that at some point a skeleton appears at you and scares you. So we were going to do that, but with a skeleton of, I would say, a Big the Cat, it wouldn't necessarily-”
“Not necessarily the Big Cat,” Miller interjected.
“But we ended up cutting it,” Casey concluded. “It didn't make any sense.”
So, there is no Big Cat. But on the plus side, for fans of the character, there's no dead Big the Cat either.
Fans have previously celebrated every time Big has appeared over the years: in Sonic Frontiers, Sonic Racing, Sonic Prime, and even Lego Dimensions.
“Sega and Paramount more closely align the game and movie worlds for an authentic Sonic game with Keanu's cool touch,” Ed wrote in Eurogamer's Sonic the Hedgehog 3 movie review.
What's next for the Sonic movies after the Sonic the Hedgehog 3 post-credits scene? Eurogamer's resident Sonic fan Ed has a spoiler guide.