Ben Schwartz hails introduction of Shadow in Sonic the Hedgehog 3

Ben Schwartz has teased the "gratifying" introduction of Shadow in 'Sonic the Hedgehog 3'.

It was announced last month that Keanu Reeves would be lending his voice to the character in the third instalment of the film franchise based on Sega's popular video games and Ben - who will once again be voicing the titular speedster - says that Shadow has been included with the fans in mind.

The 42-year-old star told Screen Rant: "Well, I think it's also exciting for me when you get to introduce another character from the video games.

"For me, it's gratifying and lovely, and also, Shadow, to me - people have rankings of which is their favourite Sonic characters, but to me, I think we're hitting all of the A sides. We're hitting all the big hits, like all the ones that are just extraordinary, and these are characters that in different games you could play as. So, it's pretty remarkable."

Ben believes that the introduction of characters such as Shadow and the changes made to Sonic's appearance in the original movie after a trailer was heavily criticised shows that film bosses always have the audience at heart with their work on the franchise.

The 'Parks and Recreation' actor said: "I love the intro to him in this film, and I think fans are going to be excited.

"And I think fans understand how much we care about them, think about how much we changed the film from the response to the first trailer, which I think was the very right move. I think fans will feel like they're being taken care of, I hope, because we always do it for them, and it hasn't failed yet.

"We get to make a third one, there's a spin-off, so the idea that we're still doing this, man, you think about where we started and where we are right now, it's pretty remarkable. So we're very excited."