The Collector was the main antagonist in an early version of DreamWorks Animation's 47th full-length animated feature film Kung Fu Panda 4, the fourth installment of the Kung Fu Panda franchise.
She was going to a human sorceress from the Hu-man City who aspired to take over all the Kung Fu in the world. To do so, the Collector conspired to claim the Staff of Wisdom from Po, the Dragon Warrior, so she could open the Spirit Realm and steal the Kung Fu from all late masters and then defeat Po to prove herself.
She was ultimately replaced by The Chameleon in the finished project.
Biography[]
Early on the production of Kung Fu Panda 4, it was considered to make the fourth installment of the Kung Fu Panda franchise a live-action/animated hybrid film featuring human beings in Po's adventure. The idea behind this is that a human named Zhen would draw Po's attention to Hu-man City, a city populated by humans, in which Po would have faced the Collector, a human sorceress that aspired to take over the world with Kung Fu she would steal from all late Kung Fu masters.
To achieve her goals, the Collector was planning to claim the Staff of Wisdom, which Po possessed, to open a portal to the Spirit Realm, abduct the masters and then lock them into cages after stripping them from their abilities. In the only concept artwork released by artist Luca Pisanu, it's shown that the Collector was gonna face Po in her temple around the film's climax. However, considering that there are plans for at least two more Kung Fu Panda sequels to fulfill ex-CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg's plans for a six-film series, it's likely Po would have defeated the Collector.
However, the idea of a hybrid live-action/animation sequel was dropped sometime before co-director Stephanie Ma Stine came to the project. Nevertheless, the mere concept of bringing in the human race into the third Kung Fu Panda sequel was kept until the second animatic screening (as evidenced by Pisanu's artwork, which clearly depicts the Collector as an animated human woman). Afterwards, it was finally decided to not include humans at all in the film and instead rewrite the Collector into the Chameleon, a chameleon sorceress with pretty much the same goals, just like Zhen would be rewrriten into a corsax vixen thief who befriends Po in the adventure and Hu-man City being rewritten into Juniper City.
Trivia[]
- Stephanie Ma Stine was confused over the decision to call The Collector like that given how Kai the Collector, the main antagonist of Kung Fu Panda 3, was similarly nicknamed "The Collector". It's possible that DreamWorks prefers to refer to Kai as "General Kai" as such, just like they do in Kung Fu Panda 4.
- Upon the reveal of the Collector original concept for the Chameleon, many fans have expressed relief over the Chameleon replacing the Collector due to finding the idea of including humans in the Kung Fu Panda franchise as "off-putting" if not "terrible".
- Although Viola Davis ended up voicing the Chameleon in the finished film, it's unlikely she would have played the role had the Chameleon been kept as the Collector whether in live-action or animation form, as Pisanu's artwork seems to depict her as an Asian woman, which coupled with the story's Chinese setting, would have likely had an Asian actress playing the role.