For their fifth fully-animated feature-film collaboration, Illumination Entertainment and Universal Pictures present The Secret Life of Pets, a comedy about the lives our pets lead after we leave for work or school each day.

Genesis of the Film

Chris Meledandri, who as founder and CEO of Illumination Entertainment has built the company into one of the entertainment industry’s leading producers of event animated films, walks us through the inception of The Secret Life of Pets: “The inspiration behind Pets was all of the pets that my family and I have owned since I was a little kid. We grew up with a cat and dogs and a bird, and what I realized as I became a parent was that we all invested these pets with rich emotional lives.  Whenever we’d come home we would be thinking about the joy in their faces in seeing us and thinking about them doing things that were a little bit naughty. We realized we were asking exactly what they had done while we were out.”

While Meledandri is based in Santa Monica, California, with a great deal of Illumination talent, producer Janet Healy, with whom he has produced all of the films in the Illumination canon, runs Illumination Mac Guff in France. He is adamant that no production is conceptualized without her deep involvement. Inarguably Meledandri’s inarguable right-hand, without Healy The Secret Life of Pets would have never come to fruition. He raves: “Janet is the best producing partner I could ever imagine having, and at this moment in time we’re producing multiple films together.  She brings a level of leadership, creativity and energy to every aspect of every movie. 

The star of The Secret Life of Pets has a special inspiration of his own. Laughs Meledandri: “I imagine Max is a bit like what my nine-year-old must have thought when my wife and I came home from the hospital with a new baby: ‘Where did this guy come from? Who asked him here? My life was fine before he arrived and no, I don’t want to share everything that I’ve got that’s so perfect.’” 

Working through Comedy

Fortunately for producers Meledandri and Healy, they have worked with The Secret Life of Pets’ director Chris Renaud for many years. Meledandri gives a bit of their history. Director Renaud explains what drew him to the film. They’re so thrilled to see you, and their short-term memory doesn’t quite work. That’s how they play Max, who sees Katie through that lens in his own life. She’s the center of his universe, and he expects that’s how she feels as well…until she brings home this other dog.

Co-director Cheney discusses his inspiration that every animal has their own personality, and there is so much humor in that. They aren’t people, but it feels that way. To have the opportunity to capture that in film is what spoke to me, especially as a pet owner. When they leave for work or school in the morning, they are essentially handing over the keys to our pets. It is now their place, and for this universe we imagine that they have their own daily routines just like humans.

In fact, very few people at Illumination know the director and co-director as well as producer Healy. She explained what they brought to the table, she’s spent a lot of time with Chris Renaud and Yarrow Cheney over the last eight years. They have incredible talents and very complementary skills. They’re both so adept and experienced at animation, but Chris comes from a storyboarding and comic-book background, so he’s a master of timing and staging. He’s got a comic sensibility that can be very irreverent and always fun. Yarrow has an artistic background in fine arts. He’s a beautiful painter and has one of the most precise and sophisticated color senses of anybody I’ve ever met. Together, they’re a full package that makes this move wonderful.”  

It’s a Dog’s Life

When the filmmakers sought out voice talent for the principal and supporting roles in The Secret Life of Pets, they found it wasn’t difficult to pitch the project. Reveals Meledandri: “Everybody found themselves getting excited for the same exact reason: We all love our pets and are absolutely convinced that they have a life beyond what we see when we leave them in the morning or come home at the end of the day.  That’s one of the great joys of pets—thinking about what their emotional life is like and appreciating the unconditional love that we get from them.”

Meledandri acknowledges that Illumination also appreciates performers who can bring a bit of wickedness and slightly off-center vocal mannerisms to their roles. He commends: “Steve Carell did a fantastic job of that in Despicable Me. Kevin Hart does this with Snowball, and this unexpected quality is one of the reasons why we love working with Louis C.K. At the same time, we’re also not afraid of warmth. We always feel that if those feelings are authentic within the context of the movie that they enrich the film. No better example of that is Eric Stonestreet’s persona of Duke.”

Pets’ View of Manhattan

When the production team began discussions about setting the movie in New York City, director Renaud quickly envisioned a romanticized version of the town. Co-director Cheney and his team brought a visual style that is this idealized version of New York in autumn. With shimmering architectural masterpieces in the background and exquisite autumn trees in the foreground, an idyllic Manhattan was born.

Producer Healy explains that, because this New York is Max’s New York: “We start with his point of view. We actually began with some of the same elements we used in Minions but we elongated them. This New York is more like Oz than the 1960s-set Minions. Here, New York is an autumn where we’ve got beautiful clear colors of oranges and golds and reds. It’s very idealized and stylized. In all the backdrops, we have skylines in almost every shot. They’re tall, elegant and romanticized.”

Sounds of New York

Oscar®-winning French composer Alexandre Desplat, who has contributed stunning sequences to films from The Grand Budapest Hotel, Unbroken and The King’s Speech to both chapters of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, was brought onto the production to provide a distinctive New York-inspired score for The Secret Life of Pets. The production team agreed: From achieving quiet moments with his score to bringing the orchestra along on laugh-a-minute chase scenes, his work is simply unparalleled.

“One of the great final surprises of this film has been the score,” lauds Meledandri.  “For the first time we’re working with Alexandre, and he has brought energy and a style that is reminiscent of Gershwin but is at the same time this full-bodied, big movie score. We have this beautiful orchestral score with wonderful jazz elements on top. It’s one the great scores I’ve had the privilege of being associated with, and it gives the film another expression of its style.” The producer admits this was specific to the idea of the stylistic approach of the score.

Synopsis

In the heart of Manhattan, Max has what he believes is the ideal relationship with his adopted owner, Katie. One day when the big-hearted Katie brings home a rescue—a giant, fluffy, unruly mongrel by the name of Duke—Max is stunned. Duke, however, happy to have a home of his own, immediately takes liberties and assumes that he and his new brother are going to share this life with one another. 

As Max tries to hold on to his turf and Duke—who’s really a big, sweet dog who’s been through some rough times—doesn’t understand Max rebuff and feels anxious that Max is trying to get rid of him. The one thing Duke knows for certain is that he can’t go back to the pound…he barely escaped the last time. But … 

The Secret Life of Pets

Directed by: Chris Renaud

Co-Director: Yarrow Cheney

Written by: Cinco Paul & Ken Daurio and Brian Lynch

Produced by: Chris Meledandri, Janet Healy

Cast: Louis C.K., Eric Stonestreet, Kevin Hart, Jenny Slate, Ellie Kemper, Lake Bell, Dana Carvey, Hannibal Buress, Bobby Moynihan, Steve Coogan, and Albert Brooks                            

Genre: Comedy, Animation, Adventure

Language: English

Running Time: 93 Minutes

Rating: I

Trailer：https://youtu.be/L7QTl5pJiE8