Antonio Banderas loses his 9 lives in new trailer for 'Shrek' spinoff 'Puss in Boots: The Last Wish'

Puss in boots — DreamWorks Animation's iconic feline swashbuckler — hits rock bottom in the second trailer for the character's big screen sequel: The Last Wish. Antonio Banderas (most recently seen as the central villain in Sony Pictures' Uncharted adaptation) returns to voice the fan favorite hero of the fairy tale-inspired Shrek universe, who must give up adventuring after a battle against a giant leaves him with the very last of his nine lives.

With no options left to him, Puss resigns himself to a quiet life under the guardianship of enthusiastic cat lady, Mama Luna. This quiet and humdrum existence suddenly shatters with the arrival of old enemies — the Three Bears Crime Family (led by Florence Pugh's Goldilocks), "Big” Jack Horner (John Mulaney), and terrifying bounty hunter, The Big Bad Wolf (Wagner Moura) — kicking off a race to find a mythical wishing star that can restore the titular tabby's lives. Unable to find this magical MacGuffin on his own, Puss turns to old flame Kitty Soft Paws (Eternals' Salma Hayek) and happy-go-lucky therapy dog Perro (What We Do in the Shadows' Harvey Guillén) for help.

Watch the new trailer below:

Olivia Colman (The Crown), Ray Winstone (Black Widow), Samson Kayo (Sliced), Anthony Mendez (Jane the Virgin), and Da'Vine Joy Randolph (Trolls World Tour) round out the voice cast, with Joel Crawford (The Croods: A New Age) sitting in the director's chair. Illumination Entertainment founder and CEO Chris Meledandri serves as an executive producer. Mark Swift, whose longstanding tenure with DreamWorks Animation goes back all the way to 1995's Balto, is a producer. 

The studio premiered the first 30 minutes this week during a presentation at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival.

“We always compared it to The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly,” Joel Crawford explained to The Hollywood Reporter, citing the Sergio Leone and other spaghetti Western trailblazers as the main source of inspiration. “It’s this fun spin on these criminal, fairytale characters that are after the ultimate fairytale prize, which is the wishing star. Everyone’s got their own selfish kind of reasons why they want the wishing stars.”

The storytelling influences might be retro, but the technology used to bring it all to life is cutting-edge. “We wanted it to feel contemporary," added production designer Nate Wragg during the conversation with THR. "So from an artistic perspective, we really tried to take advantage of all our advances in technology to help elevate it. You’re seeing mixes of painterly textures and slick gradients, and a whole lot more art on screen than we typically do because we’re not chasing a realistic image.”

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish will claw its way onto the big screen Friday, Sep. 23.

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish Poster Photo: Dreamworks