Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway

Thomas and Bea get married, with all their friends, human and animal, attending, and Peter accepts this new part of his life. After their honeymoon, Thomas helps Bea as she works on her children’s storybooks based on Peter and his friends. Peter is a bit dismayed to know that the books have portrayed him as “naughty”, and does not want to think about Thomas and Bea starting their own family without him. Bea then gets a letter in the mail from a publisher who wants to distribute her books.

Thomas and Bea take Peter, Benjamin, Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail to meet the publisher, Nigel Basil-Jones. The other rabbits, barring a suspicious Cottontail, seem to like Nigel, until he presents his marketing plan toward the rabbits, which paints Peter as a troublemaker. They even see a billboard for a potential Peter Rabbit movie, which makes him look outright villainous.

A dismayed Peter walks away from the group and goes into town, where he meets an older rabbit named Barnabas. After getting into some more mischief, Barnabas recognizes Peter as the son of his old friend when they would swipe food from the McGregor farm. He is impressed with Peter’s movements and skills, but they are unfortunately caught by animal catchers, who take them to a pet pound, where they were taken in by a little girl named Amelia. After an afternoon spent being washed and roughly played with, the family steps out of the house, leaving Peter and Barnabas in a cage. Barnabas manages to free himself and Peter, so they go to raid the family’s fridge with the help of Barnabas’ crew. As they try to sneak the food out, Amelia’s mother comes back intending to get rid of the rabbits before her kids come home. The animals manage to run from her as she chases them into town, and they get away with their food into their hideout. Barnabas later takes Peter through the town as he talks about how his father used to steal for Peter and his sisters to keep their bellies full. Thomas and Bea then find Peter and bring him home while Barnabas returns to his hideout. The next morning, Peter tells Benjamin about Barnabas and convinces him and his sisters to join him in meeting the crew. Barnabas recognizes Peter’s sisters and divulges to all of them his big plan to rob from the farmers market, with their big score being packs of dried fruit.

Thomas and Bea meet with Nigel again to go over designs for the rabbits, but after already having them dressed up in contemporary clothes, Nigel makes another suggestion that they should be on a beach. Thomas starts to realize that Nigel’s idea are not in the best interests of Bea’s work. He even later goes to confront Nigel himself in a boxing gym to express how he feels, with Nigel interpreting it as him speaking for Bea. She finds out and is unhappy with Thomas.

The rabbits gather help from their animal friends to pull off their heist. The animals create distractions and take out the farmers. The rabbits prepare the bins of dried fruit, but in the chaos, a cheese wheel ran over Thomas and his tomatoes that he was going to sell. After getting the dried fruits into their getaway truck, all the animals, including Benjamin and the sisters, are captured by the pet pound people. To Peter’s dismay, Barnabas reveals he was all along using him and his friends to keep the dried fruit for themselves. He even explains that he intentionally “bumped into” Peter in town after reading about him in his book, having spent a lot of time feeling angry that nobody wanted him because he was too old. Everyone is left to blame Peter for getting them into this mess, while he feels utterly terrible.

Peter leaves Barnabas and his gang and goes to find Thomas, enlisting his help in recovering his friends. After hitting a snag with their truck, they go to Bea for help while she is in a meeting with Nigel and members from the publishing company, who want to put Peter and his friends in a ludicrous space adventure as well as a dangerously unpredictable rescue mission as a way to end the story. Bea realizes this is not what she had in mind, and she pulls her stories from Nigel’s company, thus now knowing that Thomas was absolutely right about Nigel's true intentions. After talking it out with Thomas, she agrees to help him and Peter recover all their friends while going on over-the-top missions to find them.

Peter, Benjamin, and the sisters then make one last stop at Barnabas’s hideout. They take the dried fruit away from them, only for the crew to appear and capture Peter’s family. They then turn the tables on them by having prepared for this, with the rabbits stringing up Barnabas and his crew by nooses so that they get pulled away when the nearby tailor shop owner leaves in his truck. The rabbits then return all the dried fruit to their owners and rejoin Thomas and Bea as they drive home, with Peter deciding to be more willing to listen to the ones that love him.

In May 2018, it was announced that Sony Pictures had started the development of the sequel to Peter Rabbit.[8] In February 2019, it was announced David Oyelowo had joined the cast of the film, with Rose Byrne and Domnhall Gleeson reprising their roles from the first.[9] Elizabeth Debicki and Margot Robbie were confirmed to reprise their respective roles in October 2019.[10]

Unlike the first film, the sequel was not released under the Sony Pictures Animation label, though Columbia Pictures did return for distribution.

Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway was theatrically released in Australia on March 25, 2021,[14] in the United Kingdom on May 17, and in the United States on June 11.

It was initially set to be released in the United States on February 7, 2020,[8] before being moved back to April 3, 2020, earlier in Australia on March 19, and in the United Kingdom on March 27.[15] The film was delayed again to August 7, 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[16] It was then further delayed to January 15, 2021, in the United States,[17] then to April 2,[18] and again to June 11.[19] The date was then moved up to May 14 before moving back again to July 2,[20] then moving up once more to June 18,[21] and then once again back to June 11, following the film's box office success outside of the United States.[22]

In May 2021, Will Gluck said he nearly completed the script for an untitled third Peter Rabbit movie.[37]

• Official website
• Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway at IMDb