From the Sonic Movies to Amazon’s Like a Dragon Drama Series: How Sega Is Bringing Its Games to the Screen
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
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