It seems as if sexual harassment is becoming a problem among most celebrities, from Harvey Weinstein to Kevin Spacey. Even the lesser known celebrities are having their careers cut short, such as The Loud House creator Chris Savino.
Among these celebrities that are facing this form of career-ending scandals is none other than comedian Louis C.K. You may know him from his stand-up specials on HBO. However, if you're an animation junkie like I am, you may know him as the voice of Max, the Jack Russell terrier from Illumination Entertainment's 2016 film The Secret Life of Pets.
Grossing $875.5 million at the worldwide box office, distributor Universal Pictures has a sequel slated to be released on June 7, 2019. Up until now, it seemed as if everyone from the first movie would return, such as Louis C.K., Eric Stonestreet, Kevin Hart, Jenny Slate, Lake Bell, the whole-nine-yards...
However, just yesterday, Illumination announced that Louis C.K. will no longer be voicing Max in The Secret Life of Pets 2. This comes right off the heels of companies like HBO and TBS cutting ties with the former comedian.
After the news broke out, I thought that Illumination/Universal would move the film to a new release date so that they have time to find a replacement for C.K. But then, I whipped up a little theory...
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| It's almost as if the pets are reading this post and are now getting excited about my theory, haha. |
In hindsight, 2018 did seem a bit too soon for a Pets sequel since it was only two years after the original, so the pushback to 2019 did make sense in that respect...
Although, with what's happening right now with Louis C.K., I'm thinking that Illumination sort of low-key knew about the situation and pushed the film back a year so they could use that extra time to find a replacement for Max.
For those who are not in the know, Illumination has a very specific strategy when it comes to making movies: a single frame of animation is not made until the story is determined. It is true that when scenes have to be re-animated, the budget becomes bigger than what was originally intended. If your movie doesn't make anywhere near the final budget on opening weekend, then you're in trouble. I feel like YouTube user Imaxination1980 establishes that quite well in one of his "Animation Rambles" when talking about Secret Life of Pets 2(skip to 4:57):
As you can see, that video was made back when the film was still slated for a 2018 release. "Were they so confident in Secret Life of Pets 1 that they already locked the story of the sequel?", he asks. At that time, they were most likely working on the animation for the film. I'm guessing that a good chunk, if not all, of those scenes had Max in them.
Another thing that comes with animation is voice acting. I remember seeing a video on YouTube of Kevin Hart, the voice of Snowball the bunny, recording his lines for the sequel. The video is gone now, since the channel I found it on was someone pretending to be Kevin Hart. You might be able to find it on his Instagram or something, but more on that later. Anyways, if they recorded Snowball's lines, then they probably recorded Max's lines as well. That was another video that came out when the film was still slated for 2018, so they probably have animation of Max's mouth being synced up to Louis C.K.'s voice by now.
(Side note: If you don't believe me about the Kevin Hart video, I can remember a scene he recorded which presumably had him telling Max about his owner, whose name escapes me at the moment, having an Advanced Spelling quiz. He said some of those words were hard, but he thought she would ace it. You really can't make this up...)
So yes, I think that Illumination moved Pets 2 to 2019 because they knew about C.K.'s little shenanigans before they started being revealed to the public. For all we know, they may have a new voice actor already. In fact, he might be recording his lines right now as we speak! This will inevitably lead to Max's mouth being re-animated to match the dialogue of whoever the new voice actor is. With that in mind, don't be shocked if the film comes back with a budget slightly higher than the first film($75 million). The fact that it moved up to 6/7/2019 probably happened because the process is going slightly faster than expected.
Although, what if it were to get moved up again? Like I said at the beginning of this post, the predictions may or may not come true, but I did come up with a scenario for if it did happen:
Consider. Universal's other animation studio, DreamWorks, doesn't have anything to release next year. Their next film, How To Train Your Dragon 3, is slated for March 1, 2019. I'm thinking that maybe the film will move up to November 9, 2018(not saying they should rush or anything...), and that Pets 2 will aim for that date. Sounds about right, but wait a minute!
Illumination's next film, Dr. Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas, is slated to be released that day. You may argue that the film was once to set come out this year(on this very weekend, actually!), and they pushed it back to give it more time. Honestly, I think they did it because distributor Universal was just going to buy out DreamWorks and they were thinking about putting, let's say, Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie in the 11/10/2017 slot. Had they gotten the movie instead of letting Fox keep it, then it probably would have happened, as it opened weeks away from Despicable Me 3, another Universal release.
Going back on topic, Grinch could likely use another pushback to 2019 in order to make a better film than The Lorax. Plus, if there are any story issues to resolve, they can only be slight so that the film doesn't go past the normal Illumination budgets.
If anything, I can see this happening(titles in bold are for Illumination films):
11/09/2018-How To Train Your Dragon 3
03/01/2019-The Secret Life of Pets 2
06/07/2019-Everest
11/08/2019-Dr. Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas
That looks good enough. I have Oriental DreamWorks' Everest coming out on Pets 2's current date so that it doesn't open near Sony Pictures' Angry Birds Movie sequel. Plus, if this theory does come true, then Pets 2 will be Illumination's first March release since Dr. Seuss' The Lorax back in 2012...
Another theory I've thought of is The Secret Life of Pets 2 switching release dates with Minions 2, slated for July 3, 2020. I think this would happen if Illumination only found out now about what Louis C.K. is up to. Plus, Minions 2 seems to be moving at a faster rate with its new co-writer, so I can see it moving ahead of Pets 2 if they need more time to recast Max. Despicable Me 4 could then be slated for the 7/2/2021 slot that Illumination has for an untitled release. It'd be a repeat of 2015-2017 for them(Sing 2 comes out Christmas Day 2020), but given how sequel-heavy they are, I wouldn't rule it out.
With that said...
11/09/2018-Dr. Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas
06/07/2019-Minions 2
07/03/2020-The Secret Life of Pets 2
12/25/2020-Sing 2
07/02/2021-Despicable Me 4
07/01/2022-Johnny Express
12/21/2022-Dr. Seuss' The Cat In The Hat
06/30/2023-Minions 3
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| "Your f**king kids love those little s**ts!" |
In the end, these are all just theories. I say there's a 50/50 chance that one of them will come true, meaning a slate change probably won't happen, but I wouldn't be surprised if it did happen. The film schedule is an ever-changing thing, so who knows?
All-in-all, I look forward to hearing who Illumination has in mind for Max's new voice actor. I can only contemplate over who it will be, but if you have any ideas, feel free to leave them down in the comments.
Until next time!
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