Universal/DreamWorks Animation’s Kung Fu Panda 4 is coming in higher with a $19.4M Friday (including previews) and $55M, which is the same amount that How to Train Your Dragon: Hidden World opened to back in 2019. Brand animation always opens big. That’s still the second best stateside start for the Kung Fu Panda franchise.
We saw it the other day. Most of the main characters, the ‘Furios Five’, that have been in the other films are entirely absent from the storyline. When they do show up right at the end, they have no dialogue.
The entire film seemed to be geared to introducing a new character and explaining their backstory, with the pretext being the protagonist is looking for a successor. I’d expect this character to become the lead should there be future movies. Which of course there will be, when this latest one brought in $55M.