The Big Picture

Kung Fu Panda 4 is set to be the biggest adventure for Po yet as he searches for a new Dragon Warrior and faces off against a dangerous new adversary, the Chameleon. The film will feature the return of beloved characters such as Tai Lung and the Furious Five, while introducing exciting new characters voiced by actors like Viola Davis and Awkwafina. The movie will incorporate the latest technology and animation styles, including elements of anime, to create visually stunning fight scenes and bring the world of Kung Fu Panda to life.

The Kung Fu Panda franchise has been a golden goose for DreamWorks Animation. Not only are the first three films some of the animation studios’ strongest features, but they have created a world that is so vast, with memorable heroes and villains that leave a true impact on you. It’s been nearly seven years since the Dragon Warrior Po (Jack Black) graced the big screen, but that’s about to change, as Kung Fu Panda 4 is scheduled to hit theaters in March 2024.

The fourth entry in the series will take Po on his biggest adventure yet as he travels into the city to find a new Dragon Warrior before he retires to become the Spiritual Leader of the Valley of Peace. However, his journey takes a detour when he crosses paths with a dangerous new adversary, the Chameleon (Viola Davis). Po reluctantly joins forces with the fast-talking thief Zhen (Awkwafina) in order to save the Valley of Peace from the Chameleon’s wrath. To top that off, Oscar winner Ke Huy Quan also joins the cast as Han, the leader of the Den of Thieves, and Ian McShane will once again voice the beloved villain Tai Lung, who hasn’t been seen since the first film.

The recently released trailer has everything longtime fans of Kung Fu Panda could have ever hoped for, but it’s only the tip of the iceberg, according to director Mike Mitchell and producer Rebecca Huntley. We were able to sit down with Mitchell and Huntley and talk about the highly anticipated sequel, including bringing back some fan-favorite characters, how animation has evolved since Kung Fu Panda 3, what we can expect from some of the promising new characters, and what it was like having young animators who grew up with the first two films working on the latest installment of the series.

Kung Fu Panda 4 Release Date March 8, 2024 Writers Jonathan Aibel , Glenn Berger Studio(s) DreamWorks Animation Franchise(s) Kung Fu Panda

COLLIDER: First of all, I love the trailer. I grew up loving this franchise so much, and I know it’s been a while since the third one. It’s been almost seven years, if I’m not mistaken.

MIKE MITCHELL: Yeah, and 2008 was the first one, if you could imagine that. A million years ago.

I was wondering, how long has this been in the works? Has the story evolved over time?

MITCHELL: Yeah, we took a long time. And in fact, that’s why it took so long to make it. We wanted to make sure that we had the best story moving forward, and that took a while. We didn’t just want to make another one. We knew it was gonna be funny and action-packed, but we needed to make sure that we had the proper story to tell that would allow our lead character to evolve and learn, and we wanted to find the right theme. Then, probably as importantly, we wanted to find the perfect villain. We wanted to really lock in on a great villain. So, that’s why it took so long. But I always say…

REBECCA HUNTLEY: It was worth it.

MITCHELL: It was worth it, one, because we had a great story, but two, the technology. This technology changes weekly, and it evolved. So by the time we started to make this film, we had the best technology and the best artists at our disposal, so I’m really thankful for that.

HUNTLEY: It absolutely allowed us to put the best visuals on screen that completely support our action.

Po and The Chameleon Have Some Unexpected Ties in ‘Kung Fu Panda 4’

Speaking of the villain, this franchise to me has the best villains out of any animated franchise.

MITCHELL: I agree!

I love how each of the villains have a backstory that ties to each of the characters, and I want to know if you can tease anything about what the chameleon’s ties are to the past of Po or Shifu?

MITCHELL: I don’t want to do any spoilers, but Tai Lung is my favorite character villain at DreamWorks. I just love Tai Lung and the fact that he’s back in this film makes me insane as a fan of Kung Fu Panda. But the thing that I love about this villain is one, she’s a female, Po’s never faced a female villain before, and two, she’s more supernatural than any other of the villains put together. She’s got crazy powers. She’s also this big [gestures], she’s very small. We’ve never seen that before. Usually, it’s brawn and she’s a very brainy, thoughtful, tricky, calculating character. Then, voiced by Viola Davis, you don’t even think of her as small. She’s like the biggest, most powerful character of all time.

But the tie that she has, I think in the trailer she says that Po and her aren’t so different. The thing that makes him similar is when we made this film, it was kind of a love letter to the first Kung Fu Panda movie that we all love so much, and in that first film, if you remember, Po was completely underestimated. No one thought he could be the Dragon Warrior. “How is the portly panda gonna fight and use kung fu?” And then he does it! He does it in his own way. He doesn’t change who he is, he doesn’t change the shape of his body, he uses it in certain ways. So, similarly, this chameleon is very small in stature, no one believed that she could be so powerful, no one believed that she could do kung fu, and like Po, she rose to the top of her game. So Po has become the greatest hero and now she’s the greatest villain. That’s mostly what I’m willing to tell you about their connection right now.

The Furious Five Will Return in ‘Kung Fu Panda 4’

Great. One thing that stood out to me in the trailer is we don’t see any of the Furious Five. I’m curious if that’s a spoiler, if that’s intentional, or if they’re not in this adventure. What can you say about them in this movie?

MITCHELL: They make an appearance, I’ll tell you that much. But to be fair, Po is leaving the Valley of Peace and he’s going on a huge adventure to this giant city…

HUNTLEY: Where he will encounter many, many new characters.

MITCHELL: Loads. And he has to work with this entire band of thieves to fight the villain. By the way, all the old characters are back – Mr Ping, Li, played by Bryan Cranston, Shifu, played by Dustin Hoffman, and then James Hong who plays Ping. Tons of characters. All the characters come back. Every single character that you remember comes back, and a few villains that I don’t want to spoil. But really, we wanted to introduce a whole slew of new characters which we did.

The first one came out when I was, I think, nine…

MITCHELL: A tooth falls out of my head every time I hear that.

HUNTLEY: We have a number of artists who are on the crew who were so excited to work on the movie because this was their childhood, Kung Fu Panda. They grew up and they were in the theater as kids watching it.

MITCHELL: As children watching this. Now they’re crying getting to work on a Kung Fu Panda film. It made me feel very old.

The first one was one of the first movies I ever saw twice in the theater.

MITCHELL: Yeah, that was a good one. Tai Lung’s escape with all the arrows was so cool to see in the theater. Very worth it.

I’m wondering, because these are still family movies, how do you introduce these characters to people who haven’t seen the others before, and also, at the same time, have people who’ve grown up with these movies still feel attached?

MITCHELL: That’s a great question. We’re very conscious that this movie should stand on its own so you can watch it without watching anything previously. It just makes it a little more fun if you recognize who Tai Lung is, but you don’t have to.

HUNTLEY: And I think, again, from some of the cast that’s back and having people either love Shifu or they love Mr. Ping or Li, there’s that kind of connection. There’s something for everybody. So, if you are a fan of the franchise, boy, it’s there for you. And again, like Mike said, it stands on its own, so even if you don’t know who these characters are, they draw you in. You love them immediately.

MITCHELL: You get it right away. I mean, Jack Black is the Kung Fu Panda and just with a few words, you’re like, “Oh, I feel like I don’t need to see any of the previous films. I know this guy. I know this character.”

‘Kung Fu Panda 4’ Is Influenced By Anime
Image via DreamWorks Animation

DreamWorks has begun to experiment more with their animation style over time with even, like, Puss in Boots [The Last Wish] just last year that had a different look to this, and just from the trailer, I noticed that the action has almost a different style to it. What can you really say about what we can expect out of the fight scenes in this movie?

MITCHELL: Well, here’s the thing, they’ve evolved quite a bit. Like I said, all the technology has come to pass where we could do so much more than we ever could. Just the camerawork alone, like just thinking of the GoPro camera and mounting the camera on stuff and getting the camera into art. In live-action that’s been happening. They’ve never quite incorporated that into a Kung Fu Panda animated film. Furthermore, even fighting styles have evolved. There’s so much more to even kung fu fighting that has evolved since the last movie, and so we’ve put that into this film as well. It’s been really, really fascinating to see how much we can add to this film.

Also, we have, like we just talked about, a bunch of young new filmmakers working on this film, and, it’s always been around, but there’s a new big resurgence trend of anime, and so this film has more anime. I don’t remember any of the past three movies really embracing anime as much as this one has. And again, it looks like a Kung Fu Panda movie, we didn’t want to change that. We wanted to keep it furry and animals, and we’re in a fantasy Chinese world, but with the technology, we incorporated all that stuff into this film.

Ke Huy Quan Will Get to Play a Villain, Complete With an Evil Laugh

I’m kind of obsessed already with the bunny children that pop up in the trailer, but I also noticed that Ke Huy Quan is in the movie. Could you say anything about his character?

HUNTLEY: He’s fantastic. Oh my gosh, Ke is an absolute delight and we were so thrilled to have him join our cast. He is Han. He is the pangolin who’s the leader of the Den of Thieves, so to have this wonderful, just kind, charming guy come in and he plays this villainous thief who’s this leader of this underground band of criminals, he was an absolute delight and we were just so thrilled he joined the cast. So yeah, he’s the leader of the Den of Thieves.

MITCHELL: Yeah, he plays against type, which is really interesting because right away you recognize his voice. You’re like, “Oh my gosh, that’s Ke!” But he’s playing kind of this evil guy, but he’s funny too. He’s really funny.

HUNTLEY: He’s got a great laugh.

MITCHELL: Yeah, he’s got a great evil laugh. And then also his sidekicks, he’s got a lot of sidekicks, but some of them are these three very cute bunnies that can become very dangerous at the same time. So, it kind of taps into our theme, I’m just only realizing doing these interviews now, is that things aren’t what they seem. Heroes are in the most unlikely places.

HUNTLEY: Don’t judge a book by its cover.

MITCHELL: Just because there’s a cute bunny, they could be dangerous, and maybe that’s good in real life to know that. Don’t approach any cute rabbits, you never know what could happen.

For my final question, I was curious because there’s so many Kung Fu Panda TV spinoffs, I think there’s several even on Netflix and I think there’s one on Prime Video, for people who watched those shows, is there anything that they can expect that ties into this movie?

MITCHELL: It’s interesting. We talked to all the filmmakers of those series, as well, when we were working on this one. I don’t know if there’s anything we incorporated character-wise from those, but we did talk to them. Mostly we were really focused on the previous three feature films, and this is almost like a love letter to the feature film franchise. The big difference between this one and the series is we made a film that needs to be seen on the big screen. We put a lot of artistry and love and lighting and the effects and the epic locations, we put a lot of it into this film. And so it’s more of a continuation of the feature franchise than the shows, which we’re huge fans of and we’re conscious of.

Kung Fu Panda 4 is scheduled to hit theaters on March 8, 2024.