Paddington 3 will start filming next year. Directed by Paul King, the first Paddington was released in 2014 to great success, scoring universal acclaim from critics along with a big showing at the box office. King later helmed the 2017 sequel, Paddington 2, which performed even better in both aspects. News of Paddington 3 officially going into development was reported earlier this year, and now a production start date has also been set.

Per StudioCanal, the third Paddington movie will start principal photography in the second quarter of 2022. A director and potential cast members still haven't been officially announced, but what we do know is that King won't be back in the director's chair this time, as he'll be busy working on a Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory prequel. King came up with the story for Paddington 3 with Simon Farnaby and Mark Burton with Burton, Jon Foster, and James Lamont writing the script.

"Our beloved bear is truly part of the family," StudioCanal CEO Anna Marsh said, also confirming that another season of the Nickelodeon series Adventures of Paddington is in development as well.

Up until fairly recently, Paddington 2 was the most-reviewed title on Rotten Tomatoes to maintain a perfect 100% score after an old Citizen Kane review brought that classic movie down to 99%. That changed when a single critic, who was clearly unhappy to see the sequel holding a perfect score for whatever reason, uploaded a new negative review to drop Paddington 2 down a point. Of course, even a 99% score is still an amazing accomplishment.

"It's extremely lovely to be on any list which includes Citizen Kane, but it is obviously quite an eccentric list that goes from Citizen Kane to Paddington 2, so I'll try not to take it too seriously," King told The Hollywood Reporter at the time. "I won't let it go too much to my head and immediately build my Xanadu. But I have been cooking up a model just in case."

On his official Twitter account, Paddington himself added: "I do hope Mr Kane won't be too upset when he hears I've overtaken him with rotten tomatoes."

The Paddington movies are inspired by the original book series by author Michael Bond. The stories follow a friendly anthropomorphized bear and the success of the books had already established him as a fan favorite character worldwide. He had previously been adapted for the small screen with various TV shows and specials, including the original Paddington series in the 1960s and the 80s cartoon Paddington Bear.

In 2019, the franchise further expanded with the updated animated series The Adventures of Paddington for Nickelodeon. The show centers on the polite bear writing letters to his Aunt Lucy about the new things he's discovered that day. Ben Whishaw, who voices the bear in the movies, also voices Paddington for the cartoon show.

There's no release date set for Paddington 3, but the plan is for the sequel to start shooting in 2022. In the meantime, the original Paddington can be found streaming on Peacock. This news comes to us from The Hollywood Reporter.