Kung Fu Panda (film)

Kung Fu Panda is a 2008 American animated martial arts comedy film directed by John Stevenson and Mark Osborne and written by Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger from a story by Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris. Produced by DreamWorks Animation, it is the first installment in the Kung Fu Panda franchise. Starring Jack Black as the voice of the titular character, the film, set in a version of ancient China populated by anthropomorphic animals, centers on a bumbling giant panda named Po, a kung fu enthusiast living in the Valley of Peace. When the savage snow leopard Tai Lung (voiced by Ian McShane) is foretold to escape imprisonment and attack the Valley, Po (Black) is unwittingly named the "Dragon Warrior", a prophesied hero worthy of reading a scroll that has been intended to grant its reader limitless power.

The film began development in October 2004, and was initially conceived as a parody of martial arts films. However, director Stevenson decided instead to make an action-comedy wuxia film that incorporated the hero's journey narrative for the lead character. The project was announced in September 2005. As with most DreamWorks Animation films, the score for Kung Fu Panda was composed by Hans Zimmer, on this occasion collaborating with John Powell. Zimmer visited China to absorb the culture, and used the China National Symphony Orchestra as part of the scoring process.

Kung Fu Panda premiered at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival on May 15, 2008, and was theatrically released in the United States on June 6 by Paramount Pictures. It grossed $632 million on a budget of $130 million, making it the third highest grossing film of 2008 and the highest-grossing animated film of the year. It received positive reviews from critics, and was nominated for Best Animated Feature at the Academy Awards, and the Golden Globe Awards. The film's success spawned a franchise including three sequels; the first, Kung Fu Panda 2, was released in 2011.