‘Secret Life of Pets’ Sequel Confirmed—And It’s Coming Soon

The announcement marks an important step for Illumination, which to date, had had only one franchise—Despicable Me, which also spawned the Minions spin-off. While Illumination operates differently from Dreamworks, its desire to build franchises is similar. It took Dreamworks Animation seven years and 10 films to find its second franchise, Madagascar. Illumination found its second franchise in just six years and six films.

What’s perhaps most interesting is that Illumination intends to release the Pets sequel just two years from now, a very short schedule unless they’d already been working on a sequel prior to the original film’s release. It remains to be seen if they can meet this faster-than-usual production schedule. Illumination’s sequel to Despicable Me took three years; Dreamworks also spent three years apiece making the first sequels to Shrek and Madagascar, while Blue Sky took four years to release the first sequel to Ice Age.