Dustin Hoffman (Master Shifu), Angelina Jolie (Tigress), Jackie Chan (Monkey), Seth Rogen (Mantis), Lucy Liu (Viper), David Cross (Crane), Randalla Duk Kim (Oogway), and James Hong (Mr. But Kung Fu Panda 3 takes it a step further, and not only was the main character voiced by the same actor, but all of the other characters are voiced by their original actor. Replacing Jack Black with a B-list celeb would have been immediately noticeable.
We couldn’t picture Po being voiced by anyone other than Jack Black, and most filmmakers know that at least the main character has to be voiced by the same actor for each movie. One of the big reasons for Dreamworks’ success with the Kung Fu Panda franchise is that it has kept the same cast for each film, and the original voice cast was so stacked that it’s hard to believe the entire cast - many of which are A-list stars - would want to sign on for an animated movie’s sequel (which, typically tend to be lackluster and sometimes even end up going straight to video). And, aside from Toy Story 3, it’s the best third movie in an animated trilogy of all-time.īut what did the third film in the trilogy do specifically to win over our hearts, and what made Po’s latest outing so special? Here are five things we think other potential animated trilogies could learn from the movie: Don’t Change the Cast From The Original Film In fact, I couldn’t have asked for a better third film in the series. Instead, my skepticism came from the fact that there had only been one animated trilogy before it, and in the back of my mind, I was wondering if Jack Black could be funny as a fat panda for a third time around.Īnd, almost unbelievably, Kung Fu Panda 3 (and Jack Black) far exceeded my expectations. I’ll start by saying that I had extremely low expectations going into Kung Fu Panda 3 - not because I had little faith in the cast or because I didn’t think DreamWorks could handle it.