DreamWorks Animation has treated the audience to the very first presentation of “The Bad Guys 2” at Annecy and it’s “bigger, better and badder.”
“We’ve been incredibly happy with what we’ve been cooking,” said director Pierre Perifel.
“We’ll elevate the heist genre to action comedy,” added his co-director – “Robin to his Batman, Dumb to his Dumber” – JP Sans, recalling his love for the original book that felt like “Reservoir Dogs,’ with animals, for kids.”
“It was a little hard to adapt for kids. There’s a lot of blood and a lot of fuck-yous, so we went more for an ‘Ocean’s Eleven,’ ‘Snatch,’ ‘Baby Driver’ type of adaptation. The first film has a bit of that heist, gangster genre feel. We had the planning shot, the cool crew shot, the going undercover shot, the split screen shot, the crazy-trap-that-comes-out-of-nowhere-and-complicates-things-for-our-heroes shot.” They were joined on stage by producer Damon Rossm and composer Daniel Pemberton.
While Mr. Snake (Marc Maron), Mr. Shark (Craig Robinson), Mr. Wolf (Sam Rockwell), Mr. Piranha (Anthony Ramos) and Ms. Tarantula (Awkwafina) are back, the team wanted to bring “new characters, new stakes, new life, and a new story.”
“One of the things we love about these graphic novels is that the author plays with the genres, and we thought it’d be amazing to carry this spirit into the franchise.”
Referencing James Bond, “Mission: Impossible” and “The Fugitive,” said Perifel, the idea was to go “really cinematic and theatrical. That meant we had to raise the stakes.” As well as push the anime style.
In the first film, Bad Guys go from bad to good. But it’s not the end of their problems. “It turns out re-entering society proves very hard for our guys. They start to doubt that change.”
Struggling to find jobs as ex-convicts and framed for a crime they didn’t commit, suddenly, they are forced to do one last job: by Bad Girls.
That includes Susan aka Doom, a wry raven that’s even more sarcastic than Snake, which is why he falls for her – “Because she’s cold-hearted and sarcastic,” laughed JP Sans. The character is voiced by Natasha Lyonne.
“Her and Marc Maron recording together… It was magic. We couldn’t use a lot of the takes, because they went too far. It was so dirty.”
Rounding up the team is Bulgarian wild boar Pigtail – voiced by “Borat 2” Maria Bakalova – and a snow leopard Kitty Cat (Danielle Brooks). Soon, they are off, ruining wrestling matches, a billionaire’s wedding or even a rocket launch.
“They’re not only amazing actors, they’re great at comedy. And a lot of them are amazing at improv, so we set out to continue what was done in ‘Bad Guys 1’ and try to record them together as much as we could. There was a lot of ad lib and a lot of it stayed in the film. Pierre and I probably ruined about a third of the takes because we were laughing too hard.”
And as for that otherworldly ending that will lead the main characters further than ever?
“It’s BAD,” assured Perifel, with Sans adding: “We called it: ‘Eat it, Vin Diesel’!”
The film will be released on Aug. 1.
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