Perhaps the biggest surprise about Paddington, the everyday story of the marmalade sandwich chomping, duffel coat wearing, talking bear from Peru was that for a UK finaned film it was surprisingly costly to make at $55m but even better was its huge international success making $288m by the end of its cinema run.
Inevitably a sequel is already shooting (and is coming to the end of its first week) for a November 10th 2017 release with High Grant and Brendon Gleason as the two main leads. Grant plays the main villain, Phoenix Buchanan, a vain, charming acting legend whose star has fallen in recent years whereas Gleeson will play “Knuckles” McGinty, a notorious safe-cracker and legendary strongman who becomes an unexpected new ally for Paddington. Apart from Nicole Kidman the cast from the original film are all returning too and Paul King returns also as writer-director. King co-wrote the screenplay with actor-writer Simon Farnaby, who had a small role in the first film.
The sequel now has Paddington living with the Brown family in Windsor Gardens and the plot has him searching for a present for his beloved Aunt Lucy’s 100th birthday. Paddington spots a unique pop-up book in Mr. Gruber’s antique shop, and embarks upon a series of odd jobs to buy it. But when the book is stolen, it’s up to Paddington and the Browns to unmask the thief. Not the most complex of plots admitedly
Hopefully the film won’t have the mishaps that the first film suffered which included Colin Firth as Paddington’s voice deciding to leave the film and having to be replaced by Ben Whishaw , the BBFC for some bizarre reason deciding to certificate the film as a PG and what could have been disastrous marketing was the slightly creepy Paddington meme which made it look like a horror film.
