Is This Our First Look at 'Kung Fu Panda 3'?

User-submitted post by Brandon Smith

Kung Fu Panda 3 is, as far as animation goes, poised to be one of the heavy hitters of 2015, if DreamWorks’s brave decision to put it five days ahead of Star Wars: Episode VII is any indication. The film will mark the return of Po and The Furious Five to the big screen, continuing where 2011’s Kung Fu Panda 2 left off.

Being that the movie doesn’t come until December of next year, information has been predictably scarce (aside from the news that Hans Zimmer will be returning to score the film). But even as crucial details remain underwraps, something is bound to leak out at any point in time. And this could be the first of possibly many.

The image below of what may be our first actual look at Kung Fu Panda 3 comes courtesy of Tumblr user eddiewulf, who saw this while at a Dreamworks party and was kind enough to take a picture.

The images, which perhaps are concept art, on the billboard are a bit hard to make out, so I’ll take on the courtesy of describe each image one by one (spoilers for anybody who hasn’t watched Kung Fu Panda 2).

Image #1: The first one features Po and Master Shifu. If I had to take a guess, it appears they are having a conversation under the peach tree seen during the first movie.

Image #2: Here we have what appears to be Po confronting his long-lost father (who might be voiced by Bryan Cranston), who was seen at the end of the last film living among a hidden village of surviving pandas. We are, at this moment, being led to believe that he is the second antagonist of the film, the one described in the short synopsis as being “a little closer to home.”

Image #3: In this image, we see what appears to be an epic battle between Po and the second “supernatural” antagonist (who also might be voiced by Mads Mikkelsen). It looks quite epic, and being that this is the third film in the franchise, it’s a given that the spectacle and action will be amped up considerably.

Image #4: This one is the hardest to make out, but from what I can tell, it appears that Po and his dad are fighting side-by-side with each other. Again, it’s hard to tell and it’s even harder to know if that’s the case at this point, but it may just be that Po’s dad is being set up as the sympathetic antagonist (ironically enough, this would have been the case in an early version of the script for How To Train Your Dragon 2).

Image #5: Here we get an a better look at our second antagonist, who appears to be wearing a costume of sorts (a horned mask?). The dark, foreboding art does fit the description of a supernatural adversary. In the third image, he’s seen wielding a weapon (probably a sword) in one hand and an orb in the other.

One final thing to note is the title, which assumes the usual yellow/red font. Quite different from the official title logo shown here:

While this may not be a whole lot (and much of what I said is pure speculation), it’s a start, and there’s no doubt that, as the film gets closer, we’ll be seeing and hearing more about this film.

Kung Fu Panda 3 opens in theaters December 23, 2015.