The good news that we all needed from the movie world today.
Released in 2014 and 2017, the Paddington movies to date have proven to be some of the very best family-friendly movies of recent times (if not, and we’re whispering in case people start throwing stuff… of all time!), and combined, made over $500 million at the worldwide box office.
There had been a long silence from distributors Studiocanal about the future of the franchise, but this week, they confirmed to Variety that the third movie in the series about the world’s friendliest bear (sorry, Baloo from The Jungle Book) is officially in the works.
While none of the primary cast have been confirmed to be returning as yet – which would include Ben Whishaw as the voice of Paddington, as well as Sally Hawkins, Peter Capaldi, Hugh Bonneville, Julie Walters, and Jim Broadbent as his friends and neighbours – the one confirmed bit of news is that Paul King, the writer and director of the first two movies, won’t be back for this one.
That is because King has already signed on to write and direct the upcoming Willy Wonka prequel movie, simply titled Wonka, which will look into the childhood of the infamous chocolate maker before he became the genius recluse we know him as.
A replacement writer and/or director has not yet been confirmed, but Studiocanal did tell Variety that: “We can confirm Studiocanal is working very hard on film 3 with the utmost craft and care – as with film 1 and 2.”
Additionally, the two Paddington movies have managed to rope in some incredibly high profile actors for the more villainous roles, including Nicole Kidman, Brendan Gleeson and Hugh Grant, who really should’ve been nominated for an Oscar for his performance in the second movie.
So now is the time we begin our campaign to get Tom Hardy in as the big bad for the threequel, because… come on… how amazing would that be?
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