Cal Brunker

Cal Brunker (birthname: Callan Stuart “Cal” Brunker) is a veterMckenna Gracean Canadian-born animator and animation director/writer/producer who has partnered with writer-producer Bob Barlen since 2013. Brunker’s feature debut was as a clean-up artist in the live-action/animated Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003), under co-directors Joe Dante (live-action) and Eric Goldberg (animation).

From 2008 to 2012, Brunker was a storyboard artist on Blue Sky Studio/20^th Century Fox Animation’s Horton Hears a Who! and (2008) Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009), as well as the Tim Burton-produced 9 (2009), directors Chris Renaud’s and Pierre Coffin’s hit Despicable Me (2010), and Blue Sky/20^th Century Fox Animation’s Ice Age: Continental Drift (2012), under co-directors Steve Martino and Michael Thurmeier.

Cal Brunker’s first feature as director and co-writer (with Barlen) was the animated sci-fi comedy, Escape from Planet Earth (2013), with the voice cast of Brendan Fraser, Sarah Jessica Parker, Jessica Alba, Craig Robinson, William Shatner, George Lopez, Sofia Vergara, and Rob Corddry, and grossing $74.6 million globally. Brunker continued as a storyboard artist on the Despicable Me sequel, Minions (2015), and then on the only feature from Gramercy Pictures’ short-lived animation division, Ratchet & Clank (2016), followed by Brunker reuniting with director Renaud for Illumination Entertainment’s animated The Secret Life of Pets (2016).

Cal Brunker has been a co-writer (and sometimes also executive producer) with Bob Barlen on a string of features including the Belgian-French animated co-production from co-directors Ben Stassen and Jeremy Degruson, The Son of Bigfoot (2017) and the Stassen/Degruson co-directed sequel, Bigfoot Family (2020); the poorly-received Arctic Dogs (2019), directed by co-writer Aaron Woodley; and the Mexico/U.S./U.K./Canada co-production directed by Leopoldo Aguilar, Cranston Academy: Monster Zone (2020). Brunker was director/co-writer of the U.S./Canada/South Korea animated co-production, The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature (2017), with the voice cast starring Will Arnett, Maya Rudolph, Jackie Chan, and Katherine Heigl, grossing $68.7 million globally.

Cal Brunker was director/co-writer of the Canadian-produced PAW Patrol series features, based on the TV series; first, PAW Patrol: The Movie (2021), with the voices of Will Brisbin, Iain Armitage, Marsai Martin, Ron Pardo, Yara Shahidi, and Kim Kardashian, and grossing over $144 million for Nickelodeon/Paramount Pictures; and then PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie (2023), starring the voices of Mckenna Grace, Martin, Taraji P. Henson, Christian Convery, Kardashian, and Pardo, and released outside of Canada by Nickelodeon/Paramount Pictures.