Will Gluck directed 2018’s box office smash hit Peter Rabbit. Sequel Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway is now in theaters. Gluck is glad families can finally see the film (it was originally set to open around Easter 2020). And he hopes he and Sony can take more trips down the “Peter Rabbit” hole soon. (This interview was edited for length and clarity.)

Jackson Murphy: This movie hopped around the calendar so many times when it came to its release date. I kept seeing new announcements every week. Were your emails coming in constantly over the past 5-6 months when it came to trying to figure out when this movie was gonna open?

Will Gluck: Yeah, there were certainly a lot of conversations between us and the studio. But we were all very much aligned. Every time we moved the movie it was just because the world wasn’t ready yet. These weren’t tough decisions. It was kind of obvious with the decisions, I think.

JM: I agree with you and I think families are now ready to go back to indoor theaters and the Drive-Ins too. I watched the movie the other night and I really feel like this story has more freedom to it than the first one. Was that one of your goals in transitioning from the first movie to the second one?

WG: I guess so. We spent the first movie trying to create the world and the tone and the characters. And then once you do that, you can have a lot of fun with them, which was what our intent was anyway.

JM: You definitely bring the fun, especially with the self-aware humor. That was one of the things I didn’t expect: all this self-aware humor about sequels and Hollywood and billboards. Have you always been a fan of the self-aware media humor in films and TV shows?

WG: Yeah – my stuff is always very meta – often to the chagrin of studios. (laughs) I can’t kind of shake the meta. I love doing movies within movies. The way I look at it is: when we live our lives in the regular day, we talk about movies all the time. Why not do it when you’re actually the characters within a movie? I do like doing stuff like that. I enjoy it. I don’t know why. I just enjoy it.

JM: I enjoy it too. And in looking at the characters, maybe it was just me because I watched this film at home as opposed to seeing the first one on the big screen – but the CG of the characters looks even sharper and more defined and realistic than last time. How was the animation process on this sequel?

WG: Animal Logic, I think, is the best VFX house in the world, bar none. They just got better and better, believe it or not, after the first one. When we started the second one, I couldn’t believe when they showed me the new technology they had. It’s so realistic that you forget that they’re CG animals. I look at the first one too and I’m like, “Oh wow! It’s amazing how well they did this one.” I’m just stunned by how great [they are]. And the wind when the fur blows. So much stuff that if you look at it – all the time spent on their eyes and the reflection of the eyes and what they’re looking at. It’s amazing what these guys can do.

JM: It’s cool. When the cats came in, I thought, “They look like real cats! They have to be real cats!” Of course James Corden… has done so much voice work [over the past six or seven years]. Why do you think he has one of the best voices in this business?

WG: I wrote “Peter Rabbit” for James Corden the first time. James Corden is such an incredible actor. I don’t think people realize. And you can tell that because it’s really tough to get a real, emotive, human performance from an animated character. You forget very quickly in this movie that he’s not an animated character. James has an ability to just bring you in to what he’s feeling all through his voice. I know it sounds simple but it’s not. We had so much fun on these two movies. Plus the fact that he’s wicked smart and wicked funny. It’s so fun figuring out the character with him. And then once he does it, the animators basically mold Peter to James’s voice. By now, James is Peter. Peter is James. It’s all very much one in the same. The short answer: he’s an incredible actor.

JM: I agree. I saw him in “One Chance”… and he has great timing in this. I talked with Tim Story a couple months ago when “Tom & Jerry” came out, and I asked him about planning and executing chaos scenes – where things go everywhere and characters go flying. And he told me it was like filming two different movies with the live-action vs. the animation. How has the planning and executing of the chaos scenes been for you on these two movies?

WG: It is almost like shooting two films. You make one and then you make the other. The thing that I was really insistent on in this movie is that I wanted the interaction to feel 100% real. Because the animation was so good, people were gonna be thinking when they watch this that it’s real. So I wanted to feel like they really were in the place. And if they walked I wanted the ground to move – and if they touched something. So the action sequences in this movie, which were bananas to begin with, were triple or quadruple more difficult because that became more of an on-set, in-camera, special effects exercise.

JM: You’re right about those sequences. And in the third act, without spoiling it, there’s this new communication that Peter and Thomas McGregor discover. I did not expect this. Why did you feel like you needed to have [this scene]? Did you feel like it needed to happen to work with the story?

WG: What we established with the rules is that there’s no matter of questioning whether he’s really talking to him or not. I really felt in this movie that in that moment – it was about a father telling his son that, “I love you no matter who you are.” And the son is telling this stepfather, essentially, “You’re my father.” It’s a very emotional scene and it’s one of my favorite scenes in the movie and… that would’ve been tough if they couldn’t communicate with each other.

JM: It plays well. That intimate moment is a standout in the movie. Your theatrical releases have all been from the same studio, Sony. And I can only really think of maybe Clint Eastwood and Warner Bros. as far as the direct connection with most or all of the movies. How has your relationship with Sony over the years changed your life?

WG: (laughs) I’ve done every movie I’ve made with Sony. I love everyone there. I really like all the people who work there. I think people forget that a studio is not just the person who runs the studio, the leadership team. It’s all the different departments and post and marketing and special effects. I’ve grown very close to them and I like them very much. And I actually can’t imagine making a movie anywhere else.

JM: Really? Wow. So when it comes to your future – it seems like it will be with Sony – do you think more animation is in your future?

WG: Well hopefully we’ll get to make a couple more of these or this world. We’re definitely gonna produce some more movies as well. We’ve spent the last five years, my company [Olive Bridge Entertainment] learning this skill set of CG hybrid animation movies. It’s fun and we have a great group of people in Australia who we’ll continue to work with. So I’m a big believer in once you kind of learn how to do something and like the people around you, you should keep doing it. So I hope so!

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Jackson Murphy

Jackson Murphy is a movie critic and entertainment columnist. He is the creator of the website Lights-Camera-Jackson.com, and has made numerous appearances on television and radio.

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