Sega and Netflix Announce Crazy Taxi Movie Adaptation

Netflix and Sega announced a multi-title collaboration that will bring Crazy Taxi to the big screen. The film adaptation will be written by Dan Gregor and Doug Mand, who previously wrote the screenplay for The Naked Gun’s 2025 reboot. Several producers from the Sonic franchise — Neal H. Moritz, Toby Ascher, and Toru Nakahara — are producing the movie.

What other Sega properties will Netflix adapt as part of the deal?

Beyond the Crazy Taxi film, the companies are partnering to adapt Sonic and Stranger Than Heaven. Sonic is getting a new animated series in development with Carlos Stevens (Love, Death & Robots, The Alchemist’s Letter) and Toru Nakahara. It will target an upper pre-school audience, and the press release describes the show as a high-voltage, comedic, yet emotionally grounded series built for kids who want to feel a little edge, a little attitude, and a lot of crew wish fulfillment.

As for the adaptation of Yakuza developer RGG Studio’s upcoming game Stranger Than Heaven, the live-action film will bring a new lens to this epic world and franchise. Toru Nakahara will also produce this movie.

Expect something cute yet cool for Sonic, hilariously crazy for Crazy Taxi, and a badass action drama for Stranger Than Heaven, because we’ve got some amazing creative ideas lined up and we are just getting started. The whole team is absolutely thrilled!

Toru Nakahara, the Head Producer at Sega, shared that statement in a press release. Toru Nakahara has produced many of Sega’s recent adaptations, including all three Sonic the Hedgehog movies and the Knuckles miniseries.

Great games already have what every adaptation is chasing — characters people love, worlds they know by heart, and fandoms that show up. With Crazy Taxi, Sonic, and Stranger Than Heaven, we get to work across three completely different eras of Sega’s catalog, celebrating everything fans love, while introducing them to new audiences.

Brandon Riegg, VP of Nonfiction and Transmedia at Netflix, offered that perspective on the partnership.

The Crazy Taxi film will likely be the first project released and is slated for 2027. The upcoming game Crazy Taxi World Tour is also set for next year. Controversy over the game’s use of artificial intelligence has overshadowed the return of the classic series.

In Crazy Taxi: World Tour, generative AI was used as part of the ideation process for background objects. However, no AI-generated content will be included in the final game.

That clarification appears on the Steam description page. Hopefully, the upcoming movie will be spared from any similar content.

Source: Polygon