The first Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs was a surprising hit at the box office, paving the way for an inevitable sequel. Sony Pictures Animation brought the sequel’s crew and stars to San Diego today to meet the Comic-Con audience.

The panelists Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 included stars Bill Hader, Anna Faris, and Terry Crews along with directors Cody Cameron and Kris Pearn. Ralph Garman moderated the Sony panel. Andy Samberg, Kristen Schaal, and Will Forte also star with Hader, Faris, and Crews, and were featured in a pre-panel clip showing the actors attempting to cosplay as their animated characters.

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 was Cameron and Pearn’s first project as director. Garman congratulated Hader on his recent Emmy nomination for Saturday Night Live and said he was happy to return to his role as Flint. He said being in an animated movie is quite a different experience from being in a live-action film, having to say the same lines in a booth over and over. Faris concurred that it does require a different skill set, ending in having a shot voice after hours of voice work. Crews was proud to take the role over from Mr. T., and was told by his kids not to mess it up, as he feels it’s one of the best animated characters ever.

Pearn and Cameron then described the plot of the sequel, immediately following the first film. After celebrating saving their island of Swallow Falls, the characters are rescued by Chester, V. a new Richard Branson-type scientist/entrepreneur and his orangutan sidekick, voiced by Forte and Schaal, respectively. Flynt soon discovers Swallow Falls has been overrun by deadly food monsters, and they soon gather the rest of the characters to go back to the island and take care of the problem.

Faris was amazed at how small a part her role of voice acting is, in the context of the enormous process of animation with its hundreds of artists. Crews loved the diversity of the foodimal monsters and said he’ll never look at Taco Bell quite the same again after seeing a tacodile. Pearn and Cameron played a reel of animation tests of various living foodimals like Barry the Strawberry and an elderly, walking pickle.

The panel ended with an incredibly entertaining clip reel of the foodimals in action, interacting with the main characters. Overall, it looks like Sony’s got another instant hit on their hands.

Panel Photos

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[All photos by Dave3 for Geeks of Doom.]