The Boss Baby: Back in the Crib premiered on Netflix on May 19th and it brings more life to Boss Baby Theodore Templeton. Picking up right where the second Dreamworks movie leaves off, the 12-episode animated series follows Theodore as he is framed for embezzlement and has to revert to his Boss Baby self to avoid legal consequences. The family is reunited as Theodore goes to stay with his brother and sister-in-law Tim and Tina, along with their two kids.

Emmy Award-winning writer and producer Brandon Sawyer serves as the executive producer and showrunner for the series, coming off his previous work in The Boss Baby: Back in Business, Penguins of Madagascar, and Monsters vs. Aliens. In an interview with Game Rant, Sawyer opened up about the new Netflix series, planning ahead for future Boss Baby projects, production challenges, and what keeps drawing him back to the franchise.

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Game Rant: Where do we find Boss Baby in the series?

Brandon Sawyer: We are now in the present and Boss Baby Theodore Templeton has grown up and founded his own company. His brother Tim is married to Carol, and they have two daughters, Tina and Tabitha. The company, Baby Corp, has invented this special formula that will allow adults to shrink back to their baby selves. And in the movie, they need Boss Baby back. They need him to come to the rescue for the crisis they're having in the baby world. So that's the series: they learn life lessons, everybody loves each other, and it’s great.

Boss Baby Production Still

GR: The series picks up right where the second movie leaves off. Can you talk to me about what it is like in the production room? What is the planning process? Do you adopt the Marvel mindset where projects are planned years in advance?

Sawyer: Not to that level. The nice thing about Boss Baby is that Tom McGrath, who directs the movies, and I have known each other for probably a decade. We go way back. In Penguins of Madagascar, he was the voice of Skipper and also a producer. We already had a pre-existing relationship, so there is this nice synergy between the two of us. Every so often, we would just check in with each other and say, “Hey, how is the movie coming along? Hey, how's the show coming along?” There was this really healthy relationship between the feature [films] and the series. They were very supportive of what we were doing.

GR: How did you choose the format for this story? What made you think it needed to be a series and not a movie?

Sawyer: There was just so much story to tell. There are ideas that feel like one story and that's a movie, and you tell it in 80 to 100 minutes. And then there are things that want to percolate a little, and you want to explore more characters and explore your existing characters in more depth. That is when you want to tell it as a series, and the stories we were telling this time lend themselves more to the series storytelling.

GR: You have had this long relationship with Boss Baby. What keeps bringing you back to the franchise?

Sawyer: It is the characters. That is always what gets me into a project. That is who you are going to have to live with. That's who you are going to have to write stories for. These characters are just so much fun and interesting, and they play well together.

GR: What was one of the biggest challenges you faced during production as an executive producer?

Sawyer: Well, you may have heard that there has been a global pandemic. That would probably be the biggest one. That was a huge earthquake to our production. We had to relearn how to do things. How do you record actors if they can't come into a studio? How do you create that studio quality recording in an actor's closet? Just so many things like that. And it required figuring these things out very quickly.

GR: What do you think is next for Boss Baby?

Sawyer: There is such a deep pool of stories that you can tell with this concept and with these characters. We intentionally end the story in a place where we have wrapped some things up, but there are still stories that can be told. As for what the future holds, I am not at liberty to say, but you'll see that there is more life to this Boss Baby.

The Boss Baby: Back in the Crib is now streaming on Netflix

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