Sega has found great success with its series of Sonic the Hedgehog movies – so much so that it has inspired the company to more actively pursue big- and small-screen adaptations of its treasure trove of game franchises. Next up is Like a Dragon: Yakuza, an Amazon Original series based on the first game in the beloved series, which launches on October 24 – and Sega has plans to do even more.
During Gamescom Asia, IGN Japan sat down with Justin Scarpone, Global Head of Transmedia at Sega, whose resume includes 17 years working with games and entertainment at Disney and who joined Sega in April 2024. From adaptations of Shinobi and Golden Axe to early forays into the theme park space, Scarpone gave us the lowdown on Sega’s plans to reach new audiences away from the game console.
“The Like a Dragon franchise is one of our core pillars,” Scarpone said when asked how the new series was conceived. “We released a live-action film years ago, but I think the new series came about originally through conversations between the Amazon Studios folks and our Like a Dragon studio, and it became a cross-Pacific project where you had talent in both the US and Japan working on the project. It’s obviously filmed in Japan, with Japanese talent, but leveraging some of the creativity that an overseas perspective brings. So it's a unique project for us.”
Streaming TV has been a great home for episodic dramas set in Japan, with Shogun breaking records in awards season and Tokyo Vice showing shocking sides of Japan’s (fictionalized) criminal underworld. Scarpone said the success of these shows has been encouraging as Amazon prepares to launch the new Like a Dragon series.
“Like a Dragon is a very Japanese story, but it's also very universal,” he said. “And one of the differences between the previous live-action film and this new drama being shown on Prime Video is that in the years since the film came out, the Like a Dragon series has become very much a global franchise. We have an international team who are considering from day one how to make a compelling story set in Japan with universal themes that resonate in different cultures.”
He says that the dev team at Ryu ga Gotoku Studio have been supportive of the Prime Video show, which is partly based on the original game but will tell its own original story.
“(Masayoshi) Yokoyama has been quite supportive of this series,” said Scarpone. “As a truly creative individual, he's seeing a very interesting interpretation of the IP he lives and breathes, and he's very happy with the quality and the output. I think he's excited to see somebody else's perspective on it.”
The Like a Dragon game series has a setting that balances heavy crime suspsense drama with more humorous themes tied to gameplay. The Amazon show seems to be leaning more toward the former, but when condensing a game with a storyline that is dozens of hours long into a TV show, it must be difficult to choose which elements to embrace and which ones to leave out.
“In the format of a series where you have about five hours of storytelling, how can you tell a compelling, exciting, dramatic and concise story?” Scarpone pondered. “Some of the games in the series you could play for over 80 hours, which gives you a lot more flexibility to weave in other aspects of the characters than you have in a condensed, linear format. So I think the director, the actors and the screenwriters of the Amazon show needed to make a judgment call on how to tell the best story within the confines of that time.
“The game series evolved over time, so if this Amazon series were to have a sequel, I think we could also experiment. The series hopefully will be a good starting point in that format, and maybe there'll be more in the future.”
Sega's Sonic renaissance
Sega has had huge success with the live-action outings for its mascot, Sonic the Hedgehog. Since 2020, Paramount Pictures has released two hit movies and a TV spinoff, with a third movie landing in December and adding Keanu Reeves to its voice cast.
“We have seemingly come to think of this period of the last decade or so as the renaissance of Sonic,” Scarpone told us. “There were a lot of stops and starts to try to bring Sonic to the silver screen – it didn't happen overnight. But once we were locked in and working on the first film, that was really Sega’s entry point into transmedia, and thinking of Sonic as a franchise, and the way companies like Disney and Universal and Warner Brothers have always done it for decades.
“We're offering new stories and new ways to experience the characters in different media. And so with Sonic, the film really expanded what Sonic could be in the eyes of the fans – and probably a lot of people inside of Sega as well.”
Indeed, in an interview with IGN in 2022, Sonic Frontiers director Morio Kishimoto told us the success of the Sonic movies had inspired him and Sonic Team while making the games.
Sega also has multiple other screen adaptations of its games in the pipeline, including versions of series that have been dormant for decades. One is Shinobi, which has both a game and a live-action adaptation in the works. The film is being produced together with Universal, which made the smash-hit Super Mario Bros. Movie, and directed by Sam Hargrave. Scarpone confirmed to us it is still in the “early stage” of development.
Classic series Golden Axe is also coming back, both as a game and as an animated series for Comedy Central. A Streets of Rage movie has also been announced, with a script by John Wick creator Derek Kolstad.
Of these adaptations of older Sega franchises, Scarpone said, “Our core pillars are franchises like Sonic, Like a Dragon, Persona and Angry Birds, but our so-called Legacy Initiative is really exciting because, while these stories have a foundation, we have a lot more new storytelling to work on, which is really cool. As we reboot some of these franchises, it's important for us to really work on the story, work on the lore, to update it for younger generations who weren't even alive when the Sega Genesis was around.”
Scarpone also confirmed that Sega has multiple other screen adaptations in the early stages of development, but would not share which games these unannounced projects are based on just yet.
And it doesn’t stop at screen adaptations. In recent years, Nintendo has had great success with its theme parks at Univeral Studios, while other games such as Monster Hunter and Resident Evil have been reimagined as excellent theme park attractions in Japan. Sega is an old hand in this business, with its Joypolis and other entertainment centres. Scarpone said Sega is keen to expand on this, offering the example of its upcoming collaboration with the Kai Tak Sports Park mall currently under construction in Hong Kong.
“Within that complex, we're going to have Sonic Stadium, which is a destination for families and children in particular, as a ticketed area where you can be immersed in the world of Green Hills and Sonic and friends.
“What Nintendo has done with Universal Studios is the gold standard, and we have similar aspirations. Attractions are another format to tell our stories and delight our fans, and we really want to be in that space. We’re not launching our own standalone theme park, but we are looking into different partnerships.”
Daniel Robson is Chief Editor of IGN Japan. Follow him on twitter here.
