Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment have confirmed the hit animated film The Secret Life of Pets is officially getting a sequel and already have a date sent in mind when the new film will be released.
Illumination CEO Chris Meledandi with his longtime partner/collaborator, Janet Healy, will be apart of the follow-up film. The Secret Life of Pets has recently set one of the biggest box office records for an original film, reigning in over 104.3 million dollars just for the film’s opening weekend. Along with the Illumination Pictures team, director Chris Renaud will be back to direct the sequel and Brian Lynch will be writing the sequel’s screenplay.
The Secret Life of Pets has reached a total worldwide box office gross of 400 million dollars, with most of its profits being acquired in the domestic U.S. The United States attributed $300 million to the overall ticket gross and $100 million acquired by international theaters. The Secret Life of Pets has opened as the no.1 movie to see in 18 different film markets from all around the world. The Secret Life of Pets has yet to open in China and many other countries, meaning the gross profits could exponentially increase by next week.
Along with the production crew, voice actors include Kevin Hart, Louis C.K., Eric Stonestreet, Steve Coogan, Hannibal Buress, Ellie Kemper, Lake Bell, Bobby Moynihan, Jenny Slate, Dana Carvey, Albert Brooks and many other stars.
The original film was overall an 85 million dollar film project that was mostly developed and produced by Illumination Pictures, which is a subsidiary of Comcast and now is owned by Universal Studios. On April 28th 2016, Universal Studios announced their goals to buy their competitor production studio DreamWorks Animation for over 3.8 billion dollars. It is rumored that Chris Meledandi will be running both DreamWorks and Illumination studios if the purchase goes through.
The Secret Life if Pets 2 has scheduled to be released in theaters by July 13th, 2018.
