How 'Paddington 2' Became an Unexpected Hit Sequel

“Paddington 2,” a sequel about a polite bear’s adventures in London, holds the record for the most consecutive positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, a site that tabulates critics’ published opinions. “Paddington 2” has 176 positive reviews—and, so far, no negative ones—besting the 163 unanimous raves for 1999’s “Toy Story 2.”

Box-office returns remain Hollywood’s most important metric, but aggregators such as Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic are playing a big role in ticket-buyers’ decisions. The scores these sites assign to movies, TV shows and other releases surface in internet searches and on-demand services, to the chagrin of producers whose titles get low scores.

“Paddington 2” (which The Journal’s Joe Morgenstern compared to “The Godfather Part II” as “a sequel that surpasses the superb original”) could still be toppled. Oscar nominee “Lady Bird” was the first movie to break the “Toy Story 2” tally, receiving 197 positive reviews before a negative one sullied its record.

Paddington was an unexpected film darling. In 1958, British author

Michael Bond

introduced the bear who travels to England from “darkest Peru” and is named for the London rail station where he is found. He’s a classic character but hardly high profile, especially in an era when family films are ruled by superheroes and sassy creatures that sing and dance. Paddington’s strengths are his optimistic mien and impeccable manners, which cause everyone he meets to reevaluate life. The effect is similar to the one

Will Ferrell’s

wildly upbeat character has in “Elf.”

“We’d all love to have someone like Paddington in our lives,” says producer

David Heyman,

who also produced the “Harry Potter” films.

Mr. Heyman struggled to find financing for the first “Paddington,” but the movie succeeded when it came out in 2014, grossing $268 million world-wide. It starred Hugh Bonneville and

Sally Hawkins

as the parents of Paddington’s adoptive family, the Browns, and

Nicole Kidman

as a villain on a mission to stuff the bear and put him in a museum.

Working independently, the filmmakers didn’t face pressure from a studio to find Paddington’s next adventure and pump out the sequel. “We weren’t working backward from a release date,” says

Paul King,

the writer and director of both “Paddington” films.

Because of his background in comedy and improv, Mr. King took a collaborative approach to the sequel, starting with co-writer

Simon Farnaby

(who appears in both films as a swaggering security guard). They recruited friends and fellow writers to weigh in on the script and various cuts of the film. The cast, including

Hugh Grant

as the bad guy on Paddington’s block, improvised lines and helped calibrate their characters in rehearsals. “I’ve never been a part of a project where the layering of comedy and meaning is such an evolutionary process,” Mr. Heyman says.

Because of his sweetness, however, Paddington posed a problem for a follow-up film. His flaws—clumsiness and a craving for marmalade—didn’t need fixing and he had already found a loving home. So the filmmakers drew on the heroes of

Frank Capra

films from the 1930s, such as “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town” and “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.”

“Can he hold onto his decency when we send him out into a wider world? It felt like a metaphor for what happens to nice humans when they go out into the world,” Mr. King says.

“Paddington 2” finds the hero saving up money to buy his beloved Aunt Lucy a pop-up book of London. The book is also coveted by a pretentious, washed-up thespian, played by the scene-stealing Mr. Grant. When the antique volume disappears, Paddington is framed for the theft and sent to prison. It’s a setting for striped prison uniforms and cartoonishly tough characters inspired by films like “Stir Crazy” and

Charlie Chaplin’s

“Modern Times.”

The prison scenes also helped show that the bear has backbone. When a hard-bitten prison cook played by

Brendan Gleeson

insults his Aunt Lucy, Paddington deploys his signature “hard stare.” Though the flash of anger appeared in the first film too, it took several months for animators to get the look right in the sequel. Mr. King describes it as “a corkscrew of muscle around his eyes, an element of hypnosis, and a kind of vortex of fur and muscle movement.” Mr. Gleeson’s distressed reaction does the rest.

Critics praised how the movie conveyed messages about decency and respect without being heavy-handed. The filmmakers say they worked to prevent emotional moments from becoming cloying. “Sentiment, not sentimentality,” Mr. Heyman says, citing a hug at the end of the movie that wasn’t allowed to go on too long.

In coming weeks, the Paddington team will gather to discuss the potential for a third film, says Mr. King, joking about the risk of succumbing to sequel fever: “We have now written Paddington 3 through 17, in which he goes to every film market.”