By Jeanni Ritchie
DreamWorks Animation’s legacy sequel Kung Fu Panda 4 is expected to bring the family franchise to $2 billion and beyond at the worldwide box office. The film opened with almost $59 million domestic, the second-biggest debut for the Kung Fu Panda series, the premiere retaining the top earning spot in the series by only a slim margin.
The sequel toppled its current competition, however, in its opening week-end. Bringing in $58.3 million over the three-day period, it usurped Dune:Part 2 to take the top spot in the box office.
Kung Fu Panda 4 is a 2024 American animated martial arts comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by Universal Pictures. Directed by Trolls’ Mike Mitchell and featuring the voices of School of Rock’s Jack Black and Crazy Rich Asian’s Awkwafina, the movie provides parents and children with many opportunities to laugh together over 94 minutes.
I’d missed the first two sequels and it had been 16 years since I’d seen the original with my now college-aged grandson. It didn’t matter. Animated films are often standalones that don’t require you to binge-watch the entire series first.
What I remembered was that Po had little confidence as the first movie started and he grew into his role of dragon warrior.
In the fourth installment, he had to leave the role he’d grown comfortable, and likely complacent with, to take on the new challenges that had been bestowed on him.
I never expected to hear myself say I identified as an animal but I felt like I was this panda!
Leaving my home and a comfortable ministry I was doing well in last year to brave new and unchartered territories in an unknown spiritual realm is the exact same journey Po faced in Kung Fu Panda 4.
The similarities were eerie.
But Po persevered just as I know I will in my own journey and by the end of the movie, I felt empowered.
It wasn’t quite over though.
With a squirmy seven-year old grandson, I’d planned to skip the credits and head out earlier than usual but a familiar tune stopped me in my tracks.
When the cover of Britney Spears’ …Baby One More Time by Tenacious D started playing, I knew we weren’t going anywhere for the next three minutes, despite his many pleas for me to either leave, stop singing so loud, or at least sit down and stop dancing in the aisles.
All three requests were denied!
Normally not a big cover fan, some just hit your soul. This was one of them.
It joined an impressive roster including 2003’s Sweet Home Alabama by Jewel in the movie of the same name.
The 2003-2010 CBS series Cold Case had an episode entitled Libertyville in which they played This Land Is Your Land by Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings. I’d bought the CD and played it after the Pledge of Allegiance in my classroom every day for the next two years. I was saddened to read of the singer’s untimely death just a few short years later.
This Tenacious D cover of ….Baby One More Time went from the screen to my personal playlist immediately, no Spinning Back Fist needed.
Kung Fu Panda 4 is playing nationwide in a theater near you.
Jeanni Ritchie has been using her children and then grandchildren as an excuse to frequent animated movies in theaters since 1990.
