Netflix and Sega announce live-action Crazy Taxi film

Netflix and Sega announced a live-action film adaptation of Crazy Taxi on September 14, 2026. Dan Gregor and Doug Mand are confirmed to write the screenplay, while Neal H. Moritz, Toby Ascher, and Toru Nakahara will produce. The project is part of a wider collaboration that also covers a new animated Sonic series and a live-action Stranger Than Heaven film.

The announcement establishes that the film exists and names its initial creative team, but it leaves several stages open. Netflix and Sega have not revealed a cast, director, production start, or release date. They have also provided no specific plot synopsis beyond the intention to carry the speed, urban chaos, and race against the clock that define the game into a comedy.

What has been confirmed about the film

Gregor and Mand will write the adaptation after working on the 2025 reboot of The Naked Gun. Their selection points to the intended comic direction, but it does not confirm the film’s tone, age rating, or story structure. Any conclusion about those elements would still be speculation.

Neal H. Moritz and Toby Ascher will produce for Original Film alongside Sega’s Toru Nakahara. All three have ties to the Sonic film adaptations, giving the new project a team already familiar with moving Sega properties into other media. That does not mean Crazy Taxi will share a universe or continuity with Sonic; no narrative connection has been announced.

The available foundation remains the concept introduced in arcades in 1999: drivers pick up passengers and try to reach their destinations before time expires, earning tips while crossing the city in unconventional ways. The game does not rely on a long plot to function, so the film will have to turn that short cycle of urgency, routes, and collisions into characters and conflict that can sustain a feature. That is an editorial consequence of the chosen format, not a story detail confirmed by the companies.

The announcement accompanies Crazy Taxi’s return to games

The franchise is also returning to video games with Crazy Taxi: World Tour, scheduled for 2027. The proximity of the two projects creates an opportunity to put the brand back into circulation after years without a main release, but Netflix and Sega have not said that the game and film will tell the same story, share specific characters, or arrive together.

Separating confirmed information from likely assumptions is particularly important here. The announcement cites punk energy, stunts, and tip chasing as central parts of the series’ identity. It does not confirm the return of licensed music associated with older entries, nor does it guarantee that classic drivers, familiar cities, or brands seen in the games will appear in the film.

The lack of a date also indicates that the project is at an early development stage. An announced screenplay can still go through revisions, and production depends on decisions about the director, cast, and schedule. Netflix presented Crazy Taxi as the first project highlighted in the new collaboration but gave no estimate for when audiences will see it.

Sonic and Stranger Than Heaven complete the collaboration

Alongside the film, Netflix and Sega are developing an animated Sonic series aimed at an upper-preschool audience. Carlos Stevens and Toru Nakahara are attached to the project, which the companies describe as comedic, high-energy, and emotionally grounded. It is separate from Sonic Prime, which already ran for three seasons on the platform.

The third title is Stranger Than Heaven, a game in development at RGG Studio, the team behind Like a Dragon. Its live-action adaptation will follow a foreigner who rises from poverty into the yakuza underworld and the entertainment business in early 20th-century Japan. Toru Nakahara will also produce that film, while further details remain under wraps.

The three projects show a strategy that does not treat Sega’s catalog as a single genre: Sonic will be children’s animation, Crazy Taxi is taking the live-action comedy route, and Stranger Than Heaven is framed as live-action crime action. For Crazy Taxi, the concrete news is the start of an adaptation and the formation of its writing and production team. Everything else, including how short arcade sessions become a feature-length story, is still awaiting confirmation.