FILM · 2025 · USA
The Bad Guys 2
35 archived facts 5 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (35)
- #001
Craig Robinson plays piano and has long performed piano in his stand-up show, so when the scene of Shark disguised as a priest at the wedding was recorded, a real musical keyboard was actually present.
- #002
One of the items stolen by the Phantom Bandit is Po's Mystic Sword, a reference to the star of DreamWorks' Kung Fu Panda series.
- #003
It is the first DreamWorks Animation film partly animated at Sony Pictures Imageworks (SPI).
- #004
Michael Godere, who voices Mr. Wolf in the out-of-film Bad Guys segments, had a brief voice role as Craig, the owner of a bank who interviews Mr. Wolf.
- #005
The name of the lucha champion Handsome Jorge is a play on the nickname of Golden Age professional wrestler Gorgeous George (1915 - 1963).
- #006
Production began in February 2023. The film, initially planned for a Spring 2026 premiere date, will be released before Zootopia 2 (2025) and was rushed into production after Zootopia 2's 2025 Thanksgiving premiere date was announced.
- #007
The film's art book reveals that the story's early drafts focused more on Diane, that Kitty was an old acquaintance of hers, and that the two ultimately repaired their relationship. In the finished film, Diane's role is somewhat smaller than in the first; she does not become directly involved in the action until the third act. Although it is never explicitly stated whether Diane and Kitty knew each other beforehand, one scene (in which Diane, after calming down, drags herself to the shuttle while whispering Kitty's name) leaves this possibility open to interpretation.
- #008
Danielle Brooks watched the film Inglourious Basterds (2009) to draw inspiration while preparing for the role of Kitty Kat.
- #009
While the first film was made entirely in-house at DreamWorks Animation, this will be the first film in the studio's new cost-cutting initiative in which parts of its animation are outsourced to other companies. In this case, Sony Pictures Imageworks (SPI) will contribute to part of the film's animation.
- #010
The distant prologue shows Tarantula's first heist with the Bad Guys; Legs was the last to join the group, as he was introduced in the second book.
- #011
Marmalade was intended to be more directly involved in the Bad Girls' heist and to join them in the final confrontation in space. However, the decision was ultimately made to focus on Kitty as the main villain and Marmalade as the Big Bad.
- #012
The space station was initially designed to be Marmalade's secret base in Earth's orbit and bore no visual resemblance to his alien form in the books. The final film replaces it with the more conventionally designed Multinational Space Station.
- #013
In the books, the girls always have Ship Tease moments with the boys, while in the film the relationships are still different: in the books, Snake and Doom fall in love with each other but never act on it. Here, they fall in love the moment they meet, and Doom's stabbing Snake in the back makes him even more attractive to her, though both deny that they are truly in love. Doom's feelings for Snake are cemented when she ignores Kitty's orders and chooses to save Snake's life. In return, while Doom is doing community service, Snake removes one of the buttons from his hat to show her he is still alive. In the books, Wolf falls in love with Agent Fox immediately, and although Agent Fox gradually falls in love with him, the two do not become an item until the last book. Here, they are mutually attracted to each other, but choose to keep things only "medium-friendly" so as not to damage Diane's reputation, only sharing a Big Damn Kiss at the climax that solidifies them as a couple.
- #014
It is DreamWorks Animation's 49th film released in theaters and its 51st film overall.
- #015
Marmalade's tattoos include the book series design of Dread Overlord Splaarghon from later volumes.
- #016
Kitty is based on Agent Kitty Kat from the books. However, because she is a villain, she serves as the opposite counterpart of Agent Kat.
- #017
Doom initially looked closer to her book counterpart; she had fur combed over her face resembling the emo-style haircut her book counterpart has.
- #018
Snake and Piranha are forced to share a spacesuit that Piranha ends up filling with farts, which the pair then use to their advantage. The same thing happened to Wolf and Piranha in Intergalactic Gas.
- #019
It is the second animated film Marc Maron and Natasha Lyonne have made together after DC League of Super-Pets (2022). Coincidentally, that second film was released the same year as The Bad Guys (2022), and both films featured guinea pigs as the main villains.
- #020
Macguffinite takes its name from the use of the "MacGuffin" in films: a MacGuffin is an object, device or event in a film (or book) that drives the plot and motivates the characters but is ultimately insignificant in itself. It serves as a narrative hook to set the characters in motion, usually introduced early, but its specific nature matters less than the pursuit of it.
- #021
When Wolf comes home from his job interview, the TV is broadcasting a message about Mr. Moon's rocket launch and the release of a new power cell. The Bad Girls later steal the rocket and combine the power cell with Macguffinite spheres to build the world's largest gold magnet.
- #022
Initially, when the Bad Guys visit Misty Luggins, they all use their con-artist experience to determine the Phantom Thief's methods. In the end they are assigned as agents who will use their skills in heists against other con artists.
- #023
It is Jorge R. Gutiérrez's fourth animated film, after The Book of Life (2014), Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023) and The Casagrandes Movie (2024).
- #024
It is JP Sans's directorial debut.
- #025
Kitty's outfit was more military-inspired and she had scars all over her body.
- #026
The symbol sometimes seen on Ms. Tarantula's hoodie appears to be the Glider, the simplest arrangement that moves across the game board in Conway's Game of Life. It is sometimes regarded as an emblem of hacker subculture.
- #027
It is Natasha Lyonne's fourth animated film, after Robots (2005), DC League of Super-Pets (2022) and The Smurfs (2025); the last of these was also released in 2025, a month earlier.
- #028
Danielle Brooks voices a character in a theatrical film for the first time since The Angry Birds Movie (2016), nine years earlier.
- #029
When Diane visits Professor Marmalade in prison and invites him to play Connect Four to amuse herself, he taunts her as he sits down to play, saying "first you stab Governors in the back," if she wants to get an idea of MacGuffinite's properties and what the Bad Girls do with it. Otherwise, Diane herself never "betrayed" Marmalade in any way during the events of the first film; that applies more to Marmalade's plans, which exploit Diane's ignorance of his good-guy facade to keep her Under Suspicion. It turns out that Marmalade used the game only as a stalling tactic (though in fact one he invested heavily in) to waste Diane's time and let the Bad Girls continue with their own plans, successfully frame the Bad Guys for their thefts, and then, once everything fell into place, upload the video evidence revealing that Diane is the Crimson Paw. Of course, when Diane catches up to the trio at the launch site, the first showing of her secret past minutes earlier results in a barrage of angry internet posts from all the people "betrayed" by Diane's hypocrisy on her phone, giving Kitty the opening she needs to calm the superior hand-to-hand fighter in horror. Marmalade had told Diane what the outcome of joining his game before it even began would be. When Diane wins the game during "Eureka!" her opponent looks down and sees that she has not only achieved the single-line win condition but also placed two additional diagonal lines on top of it, beating him from multiple directions at once. However, as Marmalade leaves, he reveals that he was visited earlier by Kitty for his insight on MacGuffinite and advised her on her plan, indirectly manipulating the current events, even while locked in his prison cell. Marmalade punctuates Diane's horror at The Reveal by opening the game board and scattering the pieces everywhere, erasing the evidence that Diane had beaten him in a single move. Although he was justly locked up for his criminal acts (though he had not committed the fake ones), by making Kitty expose Diane as the real Crimson Paw, Marmalade ruins everything he did as Governor in a single move and secures his own release from prison.
- #030
Awkwafina (Webs) had previously appeared as a guest actor in an episode of Natasha Lyonne's (Doom) series Poker Face.
- #031
Richard Ayoade and Omid Djalili, from the film's English voice cast, have both appeared in feature films by the British animation studio Aardman. Ayoade appeared in Early Man (2018) and Djalili in Shaun the Sheep Movie (2015).
- #032
The Bad Guys would have met the Bad Girls in an abandoned shipyard instead of a hangar.
- #033
The team would have encountered Snake and Doom at a big wild party instead of the Lords of Lucha tournament; MacGuffinite was a mask that Piranha accidentally stole.
- #034
In the old hideout, Wolf was investigating the MacGuffinite thefts alone, with a board dedicated to clues, and Diane was discouraging him from interfering in the investigation because she did not want him to get into trouble.
- #035
Between escaping in the hot dog truck and first meeting Kitty, the gang and Doom would have stayed at a safe house outside town.
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