JAPAN GAMING & ENTERTAINMENT 
The 1999 arcade game Crazy Taxi is becoming a live-action comedy movie.
SEGA and Netflix announced a partnership on September 14 to adapt multiple titles for film and TV. The Crazy Taxi movie is the first project under the deal. The same announcement revealed a new Sonic the Hedgehog animated series and a live-action STRANGER THAN HEAVEN film.
Dan Gregor and Doug Mand, who wrote the 2025 Naked Gun reboot, are writing the Crazy Taxi screenplay. Producers include Neal H. Moritz and Toby Ascher of Original Film and Toru Nakahara of SEGA.
Players drive a taxi, pick up passengers around the city, and race to drop them off before time runs out to earn fares. The driving itself, with flashy drifts and jumps, was the game’s main draw. An all-new entry in the series, Crazy Taxi: World Tour, is also set for release in 2027 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC (Steam).
The new Sonic animated series is aimed at preschoolers and children in the early elementary grades. Carlos Stevens and Nakahara are behind it. Netflix has already streamed three seasons of Sonic Prime.
STRANGER THAN HEAVEN is a new action-adventure from Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, the team behind the Like a Dragon series. Set in early-20th-century Japan, it follows a man who arrives from another country and rises through the yakuza and entertainment worlds. The game itself is due out January 15, 2027, and the film adaptation was announced ahead of that release. Nakahara is producing, and no details about the film itself have been revealed.
Nakahara has said Sonic will combine cuteness and coolness, Crazy Taxi will be a comedy so over-the-top it’s funny, and the third will be a hard-boiled action drama. These are the three titles named in the announcement, and none of them has a release or premiere date yet.