Pierre Perifel: Last News

John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentAnnecy this year is all about innovation, in animation  style – seen in the villain of “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” unveiled on Monday – in Europe’s push into adult animation, and even in new ways of connecting with audiences, as DreamWorks Animation has demonstrated in a joyous and packed open air screening of “The Bad Guys.”A tradition at Annecy, the lakeside outdoor events usually serve to introduce new generations of Annecy kids and families to modern animation classics. Under Marcel Jean’s artistic direction, these are becoming ever more recent.

Universal Pictures and DreamWorks Animation are readying a sequel to their $250M-grossing 2022 hit, The Bad Guys, which will release on Aug. 1, 2025.

With The Bad Guys, director Pierre Perifel found the perfect opportunity to blend together all of his childhood inspirations for a family-friendly animated heist film. Based on a children’s graphic novel series, the film follows a group of animal criminals, Mr. Wolf (Sam Rockwell), Mr. Snake (Marc Maron), Ms. Tarantula (Awkwafina), Mr. Shark (Craig Robinson) and Mr. Piranha (Anthony Ramos). After getting caught, Mr. Wolf makes a play to escape prison time by claiming that the group wants a chance to reform themselves into good guys. Though it starts as a ruse, Mr. Wolf soon finds himself excited by the opportunity to become a good guy. While the book series begins with the group having already decided to be good guys, Perifel wanted the film to be an origin story of how they came to that choice.

DreamWorks Animation's The Bad Guys topped the box office this weekend with an impressive $24M from 4,009 theaters in its domestic debut for a global total of $87.1M.Pierre Perifel's $69M-budget feature directorial debut amassed the mother demographic, with 56% of the audience being female and 62% of them surveyed as mothers - according to Deadline.The kids' caper about criminal animals 'reforming' themselves currently holds a 'certified fresh' 85% critic approval rating (out of 123 reviews) and a 93% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. Kids caper!DreamWorks Animation's The Bad Guys topped the box office this weekend with an impressive $24M from 4,009 theaters in its domestic debut for a global total of $87.1MThe Bad Guys - based on Aaron Blabey's graphic novel series (2015-2022) - features the voices of Sam Rockwell, Marc Maron, Craig Robinson, Awkwafina, Zazie Beetz, Lilly Singh, and Alex Borstein.Following close behind was Paramount Pictures' live-action/animated sequel Sonic the Hedgehog 2, which earned $15.2M domestically from 3,809 theaters in its third week for a global total of $287.8M.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans EditorLos Angeles’ ubiquitous smog, freeways, beaches and palm trees — as well as its place in moviedom — were all influential elements as filmmaker Pierre Perifel and production designer Luc Desmarchelier huddled over where to set DreamWorks’ latest animation, “The Bad Guys,” in theaters April 22.Based on the children’s book series by Aaron Blabey about a group of animals — a wolf, a snake, a shark, a tarantula and a piranha — that are always portrayed as criminal types but are trying hard to reform here, Desmarchelier says the script didn’t define where the action would be taking place. So when conceiving ideas, he looked at Chicago and New York as potential settings for the gang’s last heist.But the production designer says he and Perifel ultimately landed on a reimagined version of the City of Angels because inspirations from cop and heist movies and TV shows had a gravitational pull.

Guy Lodge Film CriticIt’s a problem that has plagued countless kids’ movies — and more than a few grownup ones — over the course of film history: The villain is conceived and performed with such lip-smacking relish that the nominal hero seems a simpering drag to be around by comparison. Conscious of that perennial imbalance, “The Bad Guys” takes a simple solution and multiplies it, making a sympathetic protagonist of not just one supposedly dastardly antagonist, but several.