Dreamworks Announces New Features For 2021: ‘The Bad Guys’ And ‘Spirit Riding Free’ Film

Dreamworks Animation, a division of the Universal Filmed Entertainment Group, within NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast Corporation, has announced two new features slated for release in 2021. Here’s what we know about them.

• One is called The Bad Guys. The director is Pierre Perifel, a longtime Dreamworks animator who co-directed the studio’s recent short film Bilby. The other is currently known as Untitled Spirit Riding Free Film. It is directed by Elaine Bogan, another Dreamworks veteran who previously directed the series Trollhunters: 3 Below and Dragons: Race to the Edge.
• The Bad Guys is about five notorious crooks who attempt “their most challenging job yet: going good.” It is based on Aaron Blabey’s bestselling illustrated book series of the same name.
• The script is by Etan Cohen (Tropic Thunder, Get Hard) and Hilary Winston (NBC’s Community and ABC’s Happy Endings). The film is produced by Damon Ross (co-producer, Nacho Libre) and Rebecca Huntley (co-producer, Abominable, The Boss Baby). The executive producers are Blabey, Cohen, Patrick Hughes, and Jeff Berg.
• As its working title suggests, the other film is based on Dreamworks’s Emmy-winning Netflix series Spirit Riding Free. It will continue the adventures of Lucky, a girl who befriends a wild mustang after moving from the city to a small frontier town. The series was based in turn on the 2002 feature Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron.
• The producer is Karen Foster (co-producer, How To Train Your Dragon). Ennio Torresan (head of story, Abominable and The Boss Baby) serves as co-director.
• Untitled Spirit Riding Free Film will be released on May 14, 2021, and The Bad Guys on September 17, 2021. The films will be distributed by Universal Pictures, which owns Dreamworks. Meanwhile, dark comedy Spooky Jack, which was previously due to come out on September 17, 2021, has been taken off the release schedule.