With “Pitch Perfect 2,” Ms. Kendrick may add another accomplishment to her résumé. The PG-13 sequel, which finds the misfit Barden Bellas squaring off against a German a cappella group called Das Sound Machine, represents the first time Ms. Kendrick has anchored a summer blockbuster. Based on the enormous response to “Pitch Perfect,” which took in $113 million worldwide during the fall of 2012, spawned a hit soundtrack and became a sensation on DVD, Universal Pictures dropped the sequel into the May major leagues.

To compete with behemoths like “Avengers: Age of Ultron” and “Mad Max: Fury Road,” “Pitch Perfect 2” dials up the razzmatazz in the weird world of college a cappella competitions — an activity, as the movie puts it, “for girls all over the country too ugly to be cheerleaders.” This time, the plot turns on a catastrophic wardrobe malfunction suffered by a Barden Bella known as Fat Amy (Rebel Wilson). Barred from competing in the United States, the group tries to redeem itself overseas.

But “Pitch Perfect 2” — part “Animal House” with women, part “Glee” goes to college, part “Bring It On” — was not an idea that immediately thrilled Ms. Kendrick. She started thinking about critical washouts like “Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous” and “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle” and “getting understandably nervous because comedy sequels are really hard to pull off,” she said.

In the end, Ms. Kendrick agreed to reprise Beca, a coolheaded Bellas member who functions as a counter to the ribald high jinks of Fat Amy and crew. The acting challenge was to avoid succumbing to the inevitable bloat of a sequel or what Ms. Kendrick described as “punch-drunk, banana-town land.”

“The machinery was so much more present on the second one,” Ms. Kendrick said. “There’s worrying over product placement and how many deluxe-edition albums are we going to be able to pull out of this one and heightened choreography.” The sequel, which was directed by Elizabeth Banks and has a rather loose definition of a cappella, ahem, cost roughly $29 million to make, about 70 percent more than the original.

Ms. Kendrick said she had relied on the director of the first movie, Jason Moore, and the screenwriter of both films, Kay Cannon, to remain grounded. “I would email Jason and Kay before certain scenes and just get words of wisdom or a little mantra from Kay,” Ms. Kendrick said. “Sometimes it was just great to be reminded by Kay that the Bellas are supposed to be people trying to find their place.”