Sega and Netflix Announce an Official Crazy Taxi Movie

Netflix and Sega just 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 also partnering to adapt Sonic and Stranger Than Heaven. Sonic is getting a new animated series that’s in development with Carlos Stevens (Love, Death & Robots, The Alchemist’s Letter) and Toru Nakahara. It will be targeted at 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 ‘that’s my crew’ wish fulfillment.”

As for the adaptation of Yakuza developer RGG Studio’s upcoming game Stranger Than Heaven, this 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,” Nakahara, the Head Producer at Sega, said in a press release. “The whole team is absolutely thrilled!” 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,” said Brandon Riegg, VP of Nonfiction and Transmedia at Netflix. “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.”

The Crazy Taxi film will likely be the first project to be released and it is currently slated for 2027. The upcoming game Crazy Taxi World Tour is also set for next year. Unfortunately, controversy over this game's use of AI-generated content has overshadowed the return of this 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,” the Steam description reads. Hopefully, the upcoming movie will be spared from any AI slop.