Paddington Bear is back: the third movie will officially start filming in July

There are few reports better to read on a Monday than the news that a third Paddington Bear film is officially in the works.

And happily, according to Deadline, that’s exactly the current state of affairs: after years of development, Paddington Bear 3, titled Paddington in Peru, is going to start filming in July. It’s a delightful revelation, as it means the film is now one step closer to landing on our screens.

Few details about the upcoming film have yet been released, but we do know that Paddington will be returning to his home in “deepest, darkest Peru”, and we do know that he’s going to be endearingly causing havoc, as usual.

Much of the original team, which included writer and actor Simon Farnaby, writer Jon Foster and writer James Lamont, are returning to make the threequel; director Paul King will also return to the production, though not in the director’s chair.

Speaking to Empire Magazine in 2020, he said that filming the Paddington films had been “one of the great treats” of his life but that, “at some point, you just have to stop. It might be time for somebody else to do a twist on it.”

There’s also no news as of yet about a release date for the new film, nor details about who will be in the cast, but, speaking on BBC Radio 2’s The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show in 2021, Hugh Bonneville, who plays Henry Brown, indicated that he would be returning in a third film, saying there was “forward momentum” on Paddington 3, and that it was “somewhere on the horizon”. Similarly, it’s expected that Ben Whishaw, who voices the lovable bear, will return to the leading role.

Paddington fans have been treated only to the sparest sightings of the marmalade scoffing bear in recent years. He popped up for afternoon tea with the Queen last June to celebrate her Platinum Jubilee, but has otherwise been pretty quiet since the release of Paddington 2 in 2017.

But now, Paddington is hurtling back into our lives: firstly, there is going to be a large-scale immersive “Paddington Bear experience” opening in London later in the year, and StudioCanal are also working on a third season of the Paddington Bear TV series, The Adventures of Paddington (the first and second seasons dropped in 2019 and 2021).

The first two films, which were based on the books by British writer Michael Bond, were both major successes. They made $282 million and $228 million respectively at the global box office, and both films picked up numerous award nominations and wins. Both have astonishingly high Rotten Tomato ratings too, with whopping 97 per cent and 99 per cent scores – a rare feat.