Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse's Bob Persichetti To Direct Puss In Boots Sequel
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse co-director Bob Persichetti has yet to polish his little golden Oscars statue for his work on the spell-binding Spidey film, and already he has scored his next major feature: the Puss in Boots sequel set up at DreamWorks Animation.
Deadline confirmed Tuesday that Persichetti will direct the second Puss in Boots movie, a continuation of the 2011 flick that spun off from DreamWorks' incredibly successful Shrek film franchise and earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture in 2012.
The titular Puss in Boots, voiced by the ever-suave Antonio Banderas, made his silver screen debut 15 years ago now, first appearing in Shrek 2 in 2004. Brandishing a sword and pulling off a wide-brimmed, feather-adorned hat like no other creature could, Puss in Boots went on to star in several subsequent Shrek movies, top-lined his own television shows The Adventures of Puss in Boots (2015) and Puss in Book: Trapped in an Epic Tale (2017), and landed his solo film eight years ago. Despite these sundry appearances, DreamWorks clearly thinks there's more story to tell when it comes to the fuzzy orange cat with a penchant for drama.
What exactly a new story might entail, we can't predict, as DreamWorks is keeping mum on details about the Puss in Boots sequel — starting with its title. Will it be Puss in Boots 2? Puss in Boots: Bigger and Bootier? Puss in Boots 2: The Return of the Puss? Puss in Boots: Chapter 2 – The Feline Follow-Up? So many possibilities, so few that will actually make it to the end stage of deliberation.
Plot details and potential film titles aside, Persichetti should do wonderful things with the new Puss in Boots movie. A veteran of the animation industry, he is the perfect fit to take on such a venture, having worked on several animated classics like Hercules, Mulan, Tarzan, The Emperor's New Groove; the criminally underrated Atlantis: The Lost Empire and Treasure Planet; and the charming 2015 film The Little Prince. Even more noteworthy than his extensive filmography (which also includes the Academy Award-winning Spider-Verse, duh!) are Persichetti's connections to both Puss in Boots and the Shrek franchise. The filmmaker-slash-writer-slash-animator-slash-storyboard-artist (pause here to catch your breath) previously served as the head of story for the original Puss in Boots movie, and worked as a storyboard artist on Shrek 2, the film in which Puss in Boots first came into our lives.
DreamWorks genuinely couldn't have selected a better person than Persichetti to helm the Puss in Boots sequel — which is apparently not to be confused with the Puss in Boots reboot. Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment owner and CEO Chris Meledandri announced in November of 2018 that refreshes of the Shrek film series and of Puss in Boots were underway, with Meledandri overseeing both projects. It's unclear whether Universal and Illumination have scrapped the Puss in Boots revival and stepped to the side to allow DreamWorks to get started on a Puss in Boots sequel instead, but it certainly doesn't seem that way as of this writing. If we can live in a world where Warner Bros. and DC Films once had six separate films about the Joker in active development (some have reportedly since been tossed in the trash), surely we can stand existing in one where there's both a Puss in Boots sequel and a Puss in Boots reboot.
DreamWorks Animation hasn't set a release date for the Puss in Boots sequel or stated whether the original voice cast (including Banderas as Puss in Boots, Salma Hayek as Kitty Softpaws, Billy Bob Thorton as Jack, Amy Sedaris as Jill, Zach Galifianakis as Humpty Alexander Dumpty, and Constance Marie as Imelda) will return for the new movie. Check back with Looper for future updates as we learn more information.