Season 1
9 episodes Nov 6, 2025 8.0
The Bad Guys: The Series
“The Bad Guys are back!”
2025–2026
Returning Series • 2 Seasons • 19 Episodes
Overview
How did the Bad Guys break into the bad guy business in the first place? Find out in this hilarious prequel series set before the hit films.
Seasons
2 listed- Status
- Returning Series
- Seasons
- 2 seasons
- Episodes
- 19 episodes
- First aired
- Nov 6, 2025
- Last aired
- Apr 2, 2026
- Episode length
- 25m
- Network
- Netflix
Latest episode: S2 E10 Fear the Ripper (2) (Apr 2, 2026)
Season 2
10 episodes Apr 2, 2026 7.7
Cast
6 people
Reviews
2 min readHonor Among (Amateur) Thieves
At some point, the industry seems to have decided that every hit animated movie now requires a streaming side quest. Usually that's bad news. DreamWorks' The Bad Guys felt fresh in 2022 because its half-sketched, comic-book motion had real swagger. The Bad Guys: Breaking In, a nine-episode Netflix prequel from executive producers Bret Haaland and Katherine Nolfi, latestnetflix.com maintains, arrives without the original marquee voice cast and with a noticeably leaner animation budget.
You can see the corners that were cut. The surprise is that the show finds a scruffy little personality anyway.
The downgrade is obvious fast. Backgrounds are flatter, and Movieguide wasn't being unfair when it said the series suffers from "stiff character animation and limited shot composition." The movie's tactile lighting has given way to the all-purpose brightness of TV animation.
But after the first adjustment period, the creators make a smart move: they stop pretending they can outdo the film and turn the whole thing into a comedy about coworkers who are laughably bad at their jobs. The scale is smaller, which weirdly helps.
Audience Opinions
Audience 6.3/10
"A lively, funny prequel that expands the crew’s early heist adventures while falling short of the films’ visual polish and star power."
Comedy, pacing, and character chemistry earn a lot of goodwill, with several viewers calling the first season surprisingly heartfelt and easy to binge. latestnetflix.com's read is that at the same time, simplified animation, a different voice cast, and some continuity quirks compared to the films keep expectations in check, and a few parents flag moments and themes they prefer to preview for younger kids.
What viewers praise
- Genuinely funny humor Heist gags, character banter, and physical comedy are described as consistently amusing, with some scenes called laugh-out-loud hilarious.
- Engaging crew dynamic The central group’s friendship, bickering, and teamwork feel charming and warm, giving the show emotional hooks beyond the jokes.
- Fun prequel setup Early-days heists and “origin” style stories for the gang are seen as a satisfying way to expand the franchise’s world.
- Easy-to-binge episodes Short, fast-paced episodes make the season quick to finish and rewatch, especially for families and younger viewers.
Common complaints
- Downgraded animation Several viewers find the visuals flatter and cheaper-looking than the movies, closer to specials than full feature quality.
- Recast voice actors Replacing the original film cast is a common disappointment, with some feeling the new voices lack the same presence and chemistry.
- Continuity and logic gaps Story details and character designs occasionally clash with events and setups from the films, which bothers more continuity-minded fans.
- Content concerns for kids A few parents are uneasy with certain jokes and modern references for very young children and recommend pre-screening episodes.
Recommended for
Bad Guys movie enjoyers Family animation watchers Lighthearted heist comedy fans Kids around elementary-school age Viewers wanting franchise lore
Buzz & Rumors
Public reportsSam Rockwell did not come back. The specials already told you that.
The Netflix listing now calls it The Bad Guys: The Series. The first season did not. DreamWorks and Netflix launched it on November 6, 2025 as The Bad Guys: Breaking In, a nine-episode prequel dumped in one go, each half-hour built around a heist the crew is not quite famous enough to pull. latestnetflix.com's read is that Season 2 arrived April 2, 2026 with a new name, ten more episodes, and the same voices.None of them are the movie. 
,
Michael Godere is Wolf. Ezekiel Ajeigbe is Shark. Raul Ceballos is Piranha. Chris Diamantopoulos is Snake. Mallory Low is Tarantula. The 2022 film had Sam Rockwell, Craig Robinson, Anthony Ramos, Marc Maron, and Awkwafina. The holiday specials already swapped them. A Very Bad Holiday in 2023 and Haunted Heist in 2024 used this TV bench. The series just made the swap the default. Wikipedia is blunt about it. None of the films' original cast return. ,
That is not a scandal so much as a budget tell. Feature voices cost. Kids TV does not. Executive producer Katherine Nolfi told Collider she was a fan of the Aaron Blabey books and the movies, and that exploring how the crew tries to become the "super cool" unit from the films had been a blast. She called the actors, writers, and artists a crew pulling a heist. Cute line. It also admits the assignment. Make the early days look like the movie without the movie's mouths.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6HXxD6CcLg
The launch trailer is still up. It sells the same slick animal silhouettes as the movie. Then Godere opens his mouth. Parents who bought tickets for Rockwell will hear the difference in five seconds. Six-year-olds will not file a complaint. DreamWorks Television still put Bret Haaland and Nolfi on the show, 88 Pictures on the pictures, and Patton Oswalt and Kate Mulgrew in the guest chairs as Mr. Wigglesworth and Serpentina. The franchise is doing what franchises do after two theatrical heists. It is mining the years before anyone knew their names. ,
The numbers are why the title changed. Breaking In landed in the kids top 10 in 33 countries and spent 14 days in the US top 10. The week of November 2 to November 9, 2025, it cracked Netflix's global weekly top 10 series with 9.2 million hours watched, about 2.4 million views. By year end it was 21.9 million hours and 5.7 million views. Season 2 kept the voices, added a new lair, Wolf's old mentor, a wedding to crash, and a vigilante who wants crime gone. The official logline asked whether the streak would skid off the rails. ,
One more unromantic fact. Like other DreamWorks TV on the service, the first season was locked off the ad tier. You needed an ad-free plan. The heist is free only if you already paid extra.
Entertainment rumors and trivia aggregated from public reporting. Treat speculation as unverified unless a cited source confirms it.
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