It doesn’t get much better than going down in history as the guy responsible for directing The Lion King, but Rob Minkoff is out to hit home with families yet again with his latest animated feature, Mr. Peabody & Sherman.  Based on the characters from The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, the 3D CGI feature hones in on the smartest dog in the world, Mr. Peabody (Ty Burrell), and his adopted human son, Sherman (Max Charles).  When Sherman gets into an argument with a classmate at school, Mr. Peabody invites Penny Peterson (Ariel Winter) and her family over for dinner to smooth things over.  His impeccable cooking, drink-mixing and musical skills seem to be doing the trick, but that’s only until Sherman and Penny hop into his time machine, the WABAC, and run the risk of destroying the space-time continuum.

Just ahead of Mr. Peabody & Sherman’s release, Collider sat down with Minkoff to discuss the opportunities that The Lion King afforded him, why he chose to making his Peabody & Sherman movie using 3D CGI versus other animation formats, requiring his animators to perform their work, and more.  Hit the jump to check out the full interview.

Rob Minkoff:

• On the challenging of following up The Lion King.
• The benefit of directing both live-action and animated films.
• The differences between directing actors while making an animated film versus a live-action film.
• Why he had Burrell and Charles do one session together.
• On setting the scene for his actors while they work in the sound booth.
• The possibility of having given his cast crazy notes while recording.
• Why he choose to use 3D CGI.
• Requiring the animators to physically perform their drawings.
• Modernizing the WABAC.