There’s a new sequel to 2020 hit 100% Wolf opening in theaters nationwide on August 23rd. 200% Wolf is double the energy and double the fun for families, with main character Freddy on another life-changing adventure. Director Alexs Stadermann (who joined me on Zoom from his home in Australia) discusses his return to this universe, creating memorable characters, and how A.I. is impacting the animation industry, in this Animation Scoop Q&A. (This interview was edited for length and clarity. Photos Credit: Flying Bark Pty Ltd)

Jackson Murphy: Animation is so big over here in America. I’m curious what the animation biz is like in Australia.

Alexs Stadermann: Oh, it’s huge. It’s huge. A lot of productions come our way, especially from America. We’re working on quite a few big projects at the moment. Flying Bark is a particularly busy studio because of our great work. We have people reach out to us constantly, more than we can actually handle. So because of that, we actually started a studio in L.A. and another one in Madrid coming up very shortly. It’s great. Great to be in the animation business at the moment.

JM: And the product is great. And that’s what we get in “200% Wolf”, which I had the chance to screen. I remember watching “100% Wolf” as well. It was a hit during the pandemic. Families were looking for a lot to watch, and this gave them a good story, a unique story, based on a book with a unique premise. So what initially got you invested in these characters and this world?

AS: I think it was just the hook of a boy who’s meant to become a werewolf and then turns into a pink poodle. When I heard that and I saw that book it just instantly hooked me. And particularly because it tells the story of somebody who feels like they don’t look right to fit into the place where they’re meant to be. I think this is a really current story and that just connected with me straight away. That doesn’t always mean external look as well. Inside of us is often a pink poodle, where we feel like we’re not adequate enough for a certain place or situation or culture. I really wanted to tell that story how it doesn’t matter what you look like or sound like. Because of that, a lot of people connected with Freddy, the main character.

JM: Yes. And things definitely get amped up in “200% Wolf”. As everybody knows, animation takes a long time. Usually three to four years for animated films. It’s been about four years since the first one, so when did you decide, ‘I want to go from “100% Wolf” to “200% Wolf”‘?

AS: Pretty much right away because we knew it was a good story. Audiences connected really well during the pandemic when it was on the streaming platforms. It went really well at Prime [Video] and at Netflix. We knew there was more — that people were genuinely interested in this character and his journey. Straight away, I sat with Fin Edquist, the writer, and we came up with five different scenarios. And this is the one we ended up picking. And that was partially for the theme, but also partially because we instantly fell in love with the character Moopoo, who we knew was going to be loved by, by many, many, many kids.

JM: Absolutely. Moopoo and Freddy — it is this theme of friendship. And in “200% Wolf”, Freddy stays with the sort of look, but he gets bigger. He gets much bigger. He’s got that wolf intensity to him this time because of the zaps from Moopoo. He gets larger. It’s shocking for all the other characters involved, but there is this sweet friendship that forms between the two. So you said you had five different stories. You settle on this one. Was it sort of risky to go, “All right, we’re going to give Freddy the big sort of wolfy look to him now that maybe fans have been waiting for, for a little bit”?

AS: Well, I have gotten quite a few emails over the years with fans saying, “Why didn’t he turn into a wolf?!” And most people get it, why we didn’t turn him into a wolf. Because it’s essentially the story that you don’t need to be a wolf to be successful. In this version, the one that hasn’t learned that lesson yet is Freddy. And so this is why we wanted to turn him into a wolf — so he realizes that essentially that’s not really the answer to everything. The answer is friendship, and to be a true hero, you have to be altruistic and put other people’s needs in front of your own. That essentially is what earns him the respect from his peers.

JM: And Moopoo is this delightful little creature who glows, who needs nourishment, who needs energy, and needs that friendship. What went into the design of Moopoo and the vibe playing off of the other characters?

AS: Well, to me, the design was twofold. One was I wanted to create a character that is super cute and can stand easily next to Baby Yoda or Baby Groot. That was obviously the thing where you go like, “We want something that is just so visually appealing.” But also he was based on the two boys of our CEO. Her two boys melted into one character and that formed Moopoo.

JM: That’s so sweet. That’s really nice. A lot going on with Max, a complicated character voiced by Jennifer Saunders.

AS: Absolute legend.

JM: Yeah. Fairy Godmother in “Shrek 2”, with one of the great vocal performances of all time. How was it working with her and establishing this character who has a lot of layers to her?

AS: We’ve written the character to be the character that she is, but Jennifer being such an amazing actress, came into the recording booth and was prepared. She read the script. She really understood the character and… what it would do to somebody being so desperate for respect over so many years, but being isolated, surrounded by essentially sycophants who don’t talk back to her. She really hooked that and went crazy with it. And because this character goes from sweet to explosively angry, Jennifer… that’s such a magic performance. And with a lot of stamina: she recorded from morning till late afternoon with one little tea break. She just kept powering on and kept giving better and better and better performances, which was very hard then for us to choose the right one because we had so many fantastic performances.

JM: That’s awesome. And also in your voice cast, returning, is the voice actress for Batty, Samara Weaving. And I saw her in a film a couple years ago, a great film on Hulu called “The Valet”. She’s a very talented actress.

AS: She’s a great actress, but also she has an incredible comedic timing. When she’s in the booth, she becomes the character and her facial expressions are absolutely fantastic. Animators watching that just go, “Oh, I want to animate this character so badly!”

JM: Nice. I think it’s important for everyone to always stay through the end credits of movies to look at the list of people who have put their heart and soul into something for several years. And what you do at the beginning of your closing credits, when the scroll begins, it says, “This film was made by real people.” And that’s an important statement for the here and now. What does that all mean to you?

AS: It really is important to me because with AI encroaching so much into the animation industry… obviously there’s a place for it to some degree, but it homogenizes things too much. Everything will start looking roughly the same and there’s just something to it that doesn’t give you that warmth and that quality or unique flavor that a human creates. A lot of people worked on this and put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into this so much passion poured into it. And I don’t think a computer program can replace that. And this is why I think you can see the results on the screen.

JM: Yeah, absolutely. And I want to wrap by kind of bouncing off of that and asking you how you feel you and the great people that you’ve worked with on these two movies have put not just 100% but 200% of yourselves into these stories and how you felt through these experiences.

AS: We are an independent studio. Flying Bark is not Disney or Pixar. So we don’t have the budgets of these major productions. We really focus on what we want to achieve and then find the most economic way to get to it. But at the same time, everybody who’s working on the [films] really wants to achieve this really high benchmark of the look. And I think in “200% Wolf”, we really managed to hit that benchmark that looks like a very high budget. Me and the crew… we are incredibly proud of what we managed to pull off. And I’m deeply humbled by the talent of everybody who contributed to this movie. It’s absolutely phenomenal.