‘The Bad Guys 2’ Director Pierre Perifel Discusses Cinematic Influences & What To Expect From Sequel

At the Annecy Animation Festival, we sat down with The Bad Guys 2 director Pierre Perifel to find out all about his new film.

Released back in 2022, DreamWorks’ beloved heist movie The Bad Guys followed the story of the titular group. Consisting of Wolf, Shark, Piranha, Snake and Tarantula as they planned their next heist, stealing the Golden Dolphin. The Bad Guys was developed during a rough period, with the COVID-19 pandemicforcing crew members to work remotely, so its success is in many ways a testament to director Pierre Perifel’s vision in bringing Aaron Blabey’s book series to life and trusting the team despite the shaky odds stacked against them when the industry was still recovering from the pandemic.

As the team’s plan to pretend to be good progresses, Wolf (Sam Rockwell) begins to welcome the idea of turning good, which causes conflict with the group. Once the team learns that Professor Marmalade (Richard Ayoade) is evil and wants to harness the power of a Meteorite, they team up with Mayor Foxinton (Zazie Beetz), who we learn is the famed thief, The Crimson Paw, to stop him. In the end, Professor Marmalade is captured and accused of being the Crimson Paw after they found the Zupango diamond on his person. The Bad Guys also give themselves up for all the crimes they’ve committed and willingly serve time in prison.

In The Bad Guys 2, the team returns as they try to fit into society with their continued battle against their bad natures, seeking to truly turn good following the events of the first film. Unfortunately for Wolf and co, it seems that the team are forced to go back into the life of crime to aid ‘The Bad Girls’ consisting of Kitty Kat (Danielle Brooks), Doom (Natasha Lyonne) and Pigtail (Maria Bakalova) on their latest heist. However, what The Bad Girls don’t realise is The Bad Guys are setting them up, leading to a clash of interests, newer, bigger conflicts and much more at stake.

We sat down with The Bad Guys 2 director Pierre Perifel to talk about the exciting release of his sequel film. Highlights include cinematic influences across genres, how the film developed from the first to the newly anticipated sequel, which aims to be bigger and better, the joy of crafting morally grey characters, what to expect from Diane and what the audience can look forward to in the film.

[Editor’s Note: This interview has been edited for clarity and concision.]

Zak: Congratulations on the film. Getting to premiere at Annecy [Festival] must be a special feeling for you. 

Pierre Perifel: Thank you! Yes, definitely. 

Zak: What aspects did you focus on in terms of adapting Aaron’s books for this sequel? 

Pierre: We’ve obviously been somewhat following the books from the first film. One of the big things was adapting it visually. So, definitely as a graphic novel, it’s black and white. We wanted to keep a little bit of that graphic novel quality in the rendering that we’re doing for the first film and for this sequel. So we have an animation that’s a little stylised. I used a lot of my own influences and just talk to Aaron about it. He’s an executive producer on the film, and he’s a big fan of the movies. He always told us that ‘I wrote the books but you guys run with it’ and do a different animal with the films.

So the movies don’t necessarily follow the same storyline as the books, and the books go much faster than the film. There are three aspects of how we are following those books. The first one is that he’s really good at using a new cinematic genre for every book. He’s playing with horror, action, and even sci-fi. He’s playing with a lot of those tropes in every single one of those books, and I think that’s incredibly fun to do. So that’s what we’re trying to do with these films. The first movie was a heist genre. I think this sequel is much more anchored in big action blockbuster films like Mission: Impossible or James Bond or The Fast and the Furious. That’s where we’re kind of homaging on this one.

The second thing that we do in regard to the book, is using some of the moments of the books to plot our story. It could be a gag. It could be a set piece, even a little bit of a storyline. So we do that a lot. In this one, we wanted to use a gag that he had done in book 4 or 5 etc, where they’re in space and Wolf and Piranha are in spacesuits. It turns out Piranha has ate a little too many burritos and farts in a spacesuit. That gag is probably one of the most iconic gags of the whole book series. We wanted to exploit that because it was so funny for the audience in particular. So we’re going to space because of the fart in a spacesuit.

The last thing that we’re doing a lot is using some of the characters that he creates, not necessarily in the same exact capacity, but using some of those characters and making sure that we’re somewhat faithful to them. So now we have three new characters in this sequel; 3 Bad Girls who are called Kitty, Pigtail and Doom. Those three characters are literally borrowed from the books. So that’s kind of how we use the books and how we follow them. But he’s given us so much freedom, and he’s always consulting with us and helping us out. 

Zak: What is the fun that comes with crafting these characters that are bad but aspire to be good? 

Pierre: So the interesting thing is when you have characters that are bad and cool at being bad by the way, and they become good and are really uncool at being good, the first thing you think is, how can I get them back to be bad again? Because that’s when the fun is. But also, how do you create an identity crisis within those characters so that you see them struggle with that new life that they’re building for themselves. Wolves decided to go good, and all of a sudden he’s incapable of re-entering society, and his life is incredibly boring and terrible to live. He really struggled with it. But nonetheless, he’s still very hopeful that he will one day have a job and date Diane, and all this stuff. He wants to be accepted. The problem is you can’t do a 90 minute movie that’s boring about somebody who’s trying to get a job there. So we needed to get them out of that space and take them on an adventure. That’s why they get kidnapped by the bad girls. To do one last job and just bring them back in the life of crime. Even though they don’t want to do it, they are forced to do it. 

Zak: From what we saw teased about the concept art book, Diane seems to have a heavy focus at some point in the production. Is this because there are new ideas that surged when she got a positive reception, or is this the plan because of the book’s inspiration? 

Pierre: She’s so important in the first movie. I think I would say equally important in this one. She’s incredibly important. She’s a massive centrepiece, not a centrepiece. She’s a massive piece, massive character playing a giant role in the story. But in terms of screen time, I would say it’s the same thing as the first one. But definitely what we’re doing is making sure that the relationship between Wolf and her keeps evolving. We established that there’s so much sensual tension between the two of them. We want to keep that relationship to keep evolving through the film.

Zak: Could you describe the movie in one word?

Pierre: Better!

The Bad Guys 2 releases in the UK & USA on August 1, 2025.

Thanks for reading our interview with The Bad Guys 2 director Pierre Perifel. For more interviews, stay tuned here at Feature First.