(Observer Network News) Comprehensive American entertainment media Variety and Deadline news, on August 12, local time, Universal Pictures announced that the movie "Kung Fu Panda 4" is scheduled to be released in March 2024. The film will continue to tell the adventure story of the panda "Ah Bao" living in ancient China, and the director is currently undecided, and american actor Jack Black may continue to voice Ah Bao.
DreamWorks' Kung Fu Panda Trilogy previously grossed $1.8 billion, the first of which set the highest grossing record for an original animated dreamworks film at the time. Nowadays, the news of the fourth part of the finalization has aroused heated discussion on Twitter, and IP fans have expectations and worries: the first three films that should be filmed have been filmed, and what else can the fourth part be filmed?
On August 12, local time, DreamWorks Animation released the final poster of "Kung Fu Panda 4" on Twitter, announcing that it was scheduled for March 8, 2024, and Universal Pictures, which was responsible for the release of the company's film, immediately forwarded the official announcement.
12 hours after the poster was released, the relevant tweets have received nearly 120,000 likes and more than 30,000 retweets, and the APPEAL of the IP is evident.
This is the second time that DreamWorks has launched a sequel plan after the release of "Kung Fu Panda 3" in 2016. According to Variety, "Kung Fu Panda 1", released in 2008, grossed $631 million worldwide, becoming DreamWorks' highest-grossing original animated film, with the second and third parts released in 2011 and 2016 respectively, with a total of $1.8 billion worldwide.
The success of the Kung Fu Panda IP has also spawned the development of three of its spin-off animated series, TV specials and animated micro-films, including the first season of Kung Fu Panda: Dragon Knight, an animated series launched by Netflix last month (July 14).
Since the voice actors of "Ah Bao" in the popular "Dragon Knight" are consistent with the "trilogy", it is Jack Blake, and multiple AMERICAN media speculate that Blake will continue to contribute in the fourth film.
At present, Universal Pictures has not yet announced the director of "Kung Fu Panda 4" and other production team candidates, and it is unclear whether the actors who have voiced the first three films - Dustin Hoffman, Jackie Chan, Liu Yuling, Angelina Jolie and others will return.
The finalization of the fourth part has also caused some viewers to worry about the quality of the film's content. When Kung Fu Panda 3 was released in 2016, American film critic Justin Chang wrote in Variety magazine that the third film was a "delightful trilogy ending" that brought the trilogy to a satisfying end to "enduring themes of persistence and self-knowledge."
Now that the fourth part is coming, it seems that the story that has been told has become a hot topic of discussion among some foreign netizens.
"The first three are mostly about mind, body and spirit, what's left of it?"
"Hopefully not a disaster like Kung Fu Panda: Dragon Knight."
"If the fourth part ends up really bad, then I would say it would be okay if they ended the 'Kung Fu Panda' series with the third part, because for me that [third part] was like they were trying to end [the series]. ”
"I like Jack Blake very much, but when is the size? The third part has ended well. ”
It is worth mentioning that the success of the first three "Kung Fu Panda" movies in box office revenue gave Hollywood a taste of the sweetness of making Chinese kung fu theme movies in the early years, and once triggered the thinking of Chinese filmmakers. In 2018, Jackie Chan, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, said in an interview during the conference that it is necessary to use the perspective of foreigners to make Chinese films and let more foreigners know About Chinese culture: "We have kung fu, we have pandas, but we don't have kung fu pandas." ”
And this situation is changing in recent years, relying on the American "Chinese story" to make a lot of money, Hollywood has not tasted for a long time. Many foreign media have paid attention to the fact that the influence of Hollywood movies in China is declining, and products made under the banner of "Chinese culture" are becoming more and more difficult to attract audiences, at the same time, Chinese films are on the rise.
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