Some new Kung Fu Panda 4 concept art has been revealed, showing humans alongside the animal characters — something that wasn’t present in the final version of the movie.
DreamWorks Animation artist Luca Pisanu showcased the art on Twitter, explaining that the humans present in art are from a “very early” stage of the film’s development, as it was a “different movie” at that point. He then praised the film’s crew and production designer Paul Duncanart before urging people to see the sequel in a theater.
You can see the art in the tweet below:
Co-director Stephanie Stine went into a bit of detail in regards to why there would have been human characters during a Discord Q&A. There, the filmmaker revealed that Kung Fu Panda 4 was originally meant to be a hybrid live-action and animation movie, with the humans being live-action, though this premise was scrapped before Stine joined the film.
“The 4th film was never considered to be made longer,” she stated. “The original story, as you might have spotted from one of our early concept artists Luca Pisano’s social medias, actually had Zhen and The Chameleon be human (she was actually known as The Collector before we ditched the humans idea). They came from a city called … Hu-man city … Let me back up first — the original story was supposed to be hybrid live action/animation, that’s why there were humans.
“For some reason before I came on, the leadership team scrapped the hybrid live action idea … They kept the humans on for a while though, up until our 2nd animatic screening if I remember correctly.”
Kung Fu Panda 4 was directed by Mike Mitchell and Stephanie Ma Stine, with Rebecca Huntley serving as the producer. The film also features the voices of Awkwafina, Viola Davis, Dustin Hoffman, James Hong, Bryan Cranston, Ian McShane, Ke Huy Quan, Lori Tan Chinn, Ronny Chieng, and more.
What happens in Kung Fu Panda 4?
“After three death-defying adventures defeating world-class villains with his unmatched courage and mad martial arts skills, Po, the Dragon Warrior, is called upon by destiny to … give it a rest already,” reads the synopsis. “More specifically, he’s tapped to become the Spiritual Leader of the Valley of Peace. That poses a couple of obvious problems. First, Po knows as much about spiritual leadership as he does about the paleo diet, and second, he needs to quickly find and train a new Dragon Warrior before he can assume his new lofty position.”
