Kung Fu Panda prequel

To be specific, a prequel about Oogway.

Synopsis
''You all know the story of Po, the legendary Dragon Warrior, the Furious Five, and Master Shifu-but what about the one who it all began with? This sweeping saga is the story of Master Oogway, beginning some 1,000 years ago in a peaceful island in the South Pacific off the coast of South America, spanning years of adventure, enlightenment, and discovery, all of which leads to the creation of something that will change the world forever-kung fu.''

Cast
Randall Duk Kim as Oogway-an elderly Galápagos tortoise who goes from an ordinary hatchling to a revered warrior and sage


 * TBA as child Oogway


 * TBA (preferably an actual teenager) as teenage Oogway

Mariela Condo as Oogway's mother

TBA as Oogway's father

J.K. Simmons as Kai-a yak warrior and Oogway's best friend and brother-at-arms

Production
The idea was conceived following the success of Kung Fu Panda 3, and production began in 2020. The progress, however, was halted and postponed due to the 2019-2023 Coronavirus Pandemic. During the postponement, many of the artists, including Nicolas Marlet, made concept art in their own homes and then sent copies of the works to DreamWorks for later evaluation. Once the quarantine was ended, the team returned to the process. They traveled to the Galápagos Islands for research and extensively studied the giant tortoises to make them as accurate as possible in the movie. Since the Galápagos Islands historically have never had any indigenous humans to base the tortoises off of, indigenous Ecuadorian cultures were sought for inspiration of what an indigenous Galápagos culture might have been like if it did exist(which it didn't). DreamWorks also took inspiration from Disney's Moana in constructing such a culture. Furthermore, Randall Duk Kim had to learn extensive Kichwa-an indigenous language-in order to speak as Oogway in said character's mother tongue, as well as Mandarin Chinese. JK Simmons also had to learn extensive Mandarin for his role as Kai. Production was completed in 2023 and the film released on March 8, 2024.

Reception
The film received overwhelmingly positive reviews from viewers and critics, who praised the story, animation, soundtrack, research, worldbuilding and effort put into it, and Randall Duk Kim's in-character ballad. On the opening weekend it gained an 83% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and currently holds an 85%. It was very well-received in Ecuador, with Ecuadorians, especially the indigenous population, praising the realistic, well-thought, if not entirely accurate, portrayal of a precolumbian anthropomorphic animal culture in the Galápagos Islands. The indigenous Manteño-Huancavilca nations of Ecuador gave DreamWorks a formal thanks for promoting their culture to the world through a fictional culture heavily inspired by theirs.

Despite its critical success, it performed rather poorly at the box office(much like Kung Fu Panda 3), only grossing some 5,000,000 million dollars.

Soundtrack
The soundtrack includes two songs with vocals-one sung by Randall Duk Kim as his character in Chinese during the movie itself, and the other in English by Phil Collins during the credits. Native Ecuadorian instruments were used extensively during scenes set in the Galápagos, while Chinese instruments were used for scenes set in China.

Trivia

 * It is the fourth prequel film DreamWorks Animation has made.
 * It is the only film in the Kung Fu Panda series to feature characters speaking in a language other than English (not counting international dubs), the languages in question being Chinese and Kichwa.
 * English is only spoken thrice in the entire movie, each time by Oogway, and never in-universe. He does so in the opening narration, in his thoughts(not out loud), and in the closing narration. All the rest of the time, he speaks in Kichwa and Chinese.
 * Cultural consultants from various indigenous Ecuadorian cultures, particularly the Manteño-Huancavilca nations, were hired in production to make a plausible pre-European Galapagos culture, not to mention scientists specializing in Galápagos native flora and fauna, geology, and history.
 * It is the first, and so far only, film that Kim has ever sung in, and he sings in Chinese as Oogway
 * Kim acted out his character's actions while recording many of his lines. The crew was so impressed with his performance that they even let him ad lib certain actions or lines to add to Oogway's personality.
 * It is by far Kim's favorite film he has done, and his enthusiasm for his character and the franchise in general helped contribute to Oogway's portrayal.

=
This obviously isn't a real movie-not yet-and the above information certainly isn't real; it's just ideas of what I'd really like to see going on during production, and mostly just a side effect of my obsession with Oogway. I really would want to base Oogway's culture on real-world native Ecuadorian cultures, though, and it wouldn't be justified without the one and only Randall Duk Kim as the main character. Again, just for fun, but maybe someday it could happen, who knows?=====