New Emotions

We’ve known for a while that the Inside Out sequel is going to feature new emotions, and now we’ve finally been given a good look at all of them!

• Anxiety: Voiced by Maya Hawke
• Envy: Voiced by Ayo Edebiri
• Ennui: Voiced by Adèle Exarchopoulos
• Embarrassment: Voiced by Paul Walter Hauser

Envy may be my favourite out of the bunch – it’s fun seeing the design features matching the emotion, and Envy having massive absolutely fits that trait.

In the poster, you can see the emotions being crammed into a tight space, hinting that Riley’s mind is going to be (literally) full of emotion. Anxiety is clearly taking centre-stage in the trailer, which I’m sure many of us can relate to when we think back to our teen years.

An interesting ‘plothole’ that Pixar fans have been picking up on is: why would Riley’s parents’ minds now have these new emotions in the original movie if they had been there all along? Our answer to this is twofold. 1. Let’s trust Pixar’s clever storytelling to tie up those loose ends, and 2. All these emotions seem to be tied to puberty in some way. Hopefully by the end of the movie, there’s a resolution involving making sure these emotions never have control of ‘headquarters’, but still have an important part to play elsewhere.

Returning Characters

In addition to Joy, Disgust, Sadness, Fear, Anger, and the Anderson family, it looks like we’ll also be seeing the return of those silly blob guys, including the beloved Subconscious Guard Dave. There are still some unknown new characters though, with voices including June Squibb and Flea.

The Scenery and other details

The scenery in this trailer is impressive! Inside Out was a beautiful movie, but the sequel has really set a new standard. The new locations inside Riley’s mind are going to be so exciting to explore, and it’s great to see the humour is still there with the “sar-chasm”.

Look at that awe-inspiring shot! Is Riley’s mind getting more complex and interlinked as she gets older? And that looks like a combined Joy/Disgust memory floating there, meaning that the combined memories discovered in the first movie must be part of everyday life now.

We’re also impressed by the real world shots too. Riley looks older, but not dramatically different. She’s a young teen with imperfections, but the imperfections look…beautiful?? It’s so good to see things like this in newer animated movies. Just look at the two stills below: look how natural her embarrassed blush looks.

And finally…look how silly Fear’s pen is.

We can’t wait for June 14th! Let us know if you spot any other little details in the trailer.

The post Inside Out 2 New Trailer – Looking At The Details appeared first on Upcoming Pixar.

Inside Out 2

Inside Out 2 is scheduled for release on 14 June 2024. Have a look at the latest teaser:

Inside Out 2, directed by Kelsey Mann, takes place just about a year after the events of the original Inside Out, and will see freshly teenage Riley having to learn how to cope with new emotions. Brand new emotion Anxiety will be played by Maya Hawke, and June Squibb has been cast as an as yet undisclosed character.

Anxiety (above) is portrayed as a bright orange, frazzled emotion with big, worried eyes. Other emotions will include: Ennui, Envy, and Embarrassment. Ah, the joys of being a young teenager.

Soul, Turning Red & Luca Come To Theatres!

Theatre release dates for these movies vary slightly worldwide. In the US, Soul came to cinemas for the first time ever from 12 January (originally released in 2020 straight to Disney+), Turning Red is out now (from 9 February), and Luca follows just a month later from 22 March.

UK release dates are just about a month behind: Turning Red from 9 February, Soul from 8 March, and Luca from 5 April. And you’d better believe I’m going to see them all, at least once.

What’s even more exciting is that each of these films is being released alongside a Pixar short! A fan favourite tradition – we’re hoping this means Pixar are going back to pairing their feature length movies with shorts again going forward. The pairings are as follows (two of which have only ever been available on Disney+):

Turning Red: Kitbull
Soul: Burrow
Luca: For the Birds

Personally, when I watched these Pixar films at home, I would make my own choice of short to watch beforehand. La Luna was my choice for Luca – both directed by Enrico Casarosa, it was wonderful to see similarities in the art style and how far he’d come since then. But For the Birds is a classic, directed by the late and brilliant Ralph Eggleston.

It must be so exciting for all these filmmakers to see their work finally come to theatres – all three of these movies felt like they would have looked magical on a cinema screen.

Other Pixar Releases To Look Forward To

Here’s a quick rundown of other dates to mark on your calendar and count down the days to:

Inside Out 2: 14 June 2024

Win Or Lose: Coming to Disney+ TBC 2024. Pixar’s first original 8 episode series. More announcements to come soon!

Elio: Pushed back to June 2025.

The post Inside Out 2 News, and Theatrical Releases appeared first on Upcoming Pixar.

This latest round-up is definitely more tame but plenty incredible. Read on for more.

Elemental on Disney+

Today is the day when you can revisit Element City on Disney+. The film will be available on DVD and blu-ray on September 26th. I cannot wait to be immersed in the vibrant world again. And as an extra special bonus, “Good Chemistry,” a behind the scenes documentary, is also included. The short “Carl’s Date” gets its streaming premiere today as well.

If you’re on Instagram, enter the Disney Movie Insiders Elemental giveaway! But hurry, it ends on September 18th.

Elemental performed exceptionally well at the box office despite a slow start, and its success in South Korea can be attributed to singer-actor D.O. of the k-pop boyband EXO. He even performed a cover of Lauv’s “Steal the show” from the soundtrack.

He really is Elemental‘s biggest fan! I hope he gets to visit the studio and even get cast in a future movie.

Disney 100

The studio’s centenary is officially on October 16 but it’s a yearlong celebration! In honor of the big occasion, an original Pete Docter sketch will be donated for the Make a Wish Foundation. For more, visit the Create 100 website.

Football Funday

Toy Story and ESPN team up for the upcoming game of the Falcons vs. the Jaguars on October 1st. It will be broadcast live from Andy’s room. That’s right, it’s an animated version of the game! As I’m not a football fan, that’s the one I’ll be tuning in for.

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Elemental is the first Pixar movie I watched in theaters since Onward in 2019. It’s been a frustratingly long four years. Some personal turmoil also made it difficult for me to really anticipate this movie. I just wasn’t as excited as I normally would be. Maybe this too wasn’t an entirely bad thing, because I had no idea walking into that theater what awaited me. This movie, par for the course, is unlike anything we’ve seen before. It’s the type of story that couldn’t have come from anywhere else. It is so distinctly Pixar even as it lights a new way.

Pixar films in recent years have taken on a more intimate and personal tone. We’ve watched a myriad of experiences unfold onscreen: the woes of a parent watching their child grow up; a child learning to fill the space left by a parent; a boy leaving his family and another finding one; a girl’s terrifying but hilarious journey into puberty. Director Pete Sohn drew on his own upbringing as a child of Korean immigrants in Elemental. The prejudices portrayed throughout are unfortunately true to our own world. Sohn wrote a very touching letter that brought me to tears. Like his parents, mine sacrificed so much to be here. Sometimes I’ve felt unworthy of that sacrifice. 

The tagline of this movie is opposites react. Fire and water can’t touch. There’s so much hostility between these two elements, so much mistrust. It’s the buddy movie formula Pixar has perfected, but this time as a love story. 

Ember (Leah Lewis) is the daughter of Bernie (Pixar’s Ronnie del Carmen) and Cinder (Sheila Vosough), shopowners who journeyed on a ship from the old country to a new land. They arrived in Element City when Ember was still, well, an ember in her mother’s womb. She grew up to be feisty, independent, and fiercely devoted to her family and their business, The Fireplace. Ember also has a temper she can’t control. But she tries! Oh does she try. One day Wade (Mamoudou Athie), a city inspector and a water guy bursts through the pipes in the shop and immediately writes up a bunch of citations. The store is in danger of closing which would crush Bernie. Ember is also being primed to take over the business, something she’s very impatient to do. 

Despite Wade’s role in The Fireplace being shut down, an unlikely friendship springs up between them which eventually leads to a very sweet romance. But how can their love be accepted? They can’t even touch each other. But somehow they are meant to be. 

Elemental is really too special for words. It glows with this earnestness and vitality, a story about family, sacrifice, love, and trust. Ember and Wade are both irresistible. The latter in particular is endearingly precious, a goofball who’s prone to loud displays of crying. Ember continues the tradition of red haired Pixar ladies, her indomitable spirit layered with vulnerability. It’s also refreshing that she isn’t concerned with her own dreams, but just that of her family’s. She’s always putting herself second. (Not a bad thing either). 

Pixar has created another astonishing world I want to live in. Element City is rippling with color and texture, so unbelievably vibrant that all you can do is soak it in. I couldn’t even look for any easter eggs! Computer animation continues to evolve in such thrilling ways. 

We can thank Elemental and Across the Spiderverse for a banner year of animation, stunning us with visually innovative feats and featuring immigrant stories that reflect our own lives. 

Also playing with Elemental is “Carl’s Date,” the short film directed by Bob Peterson. It’s taken a while to get to the big screen, after Disney+ delays. But it’s finally here! The tradition is being revived and I couldn’t be happier. A lot of fans weren’t happy with the premise of this short. I wasn’t one of them. Ellie is my favorite Pixar character, and I loved seeing her in this short, even if it was only in her wedding photograph with Carl. It’s a charming and heartwarming few minutes that remind you of how amazing Dug is. Carl is less the grouch but still totally lovable. You’ll be left wondering how his date actually goes because we never see it! Maybe there will be a part two.

See Elemental and “Carl’s Date” now playing in theaters everywhere.

The post The Invigorating Pleasures of Elemental appeared first on Upcoming Pixar.

Elio is being directed by Adrian Molina (co-director of Coco) and produced by Mary Alice Drumm (associate producer of Coco). Watch the trailer below, and keep reading for a quick dive into some of the hidden details you might have missed.

Elio will follow the titular 11 year-old Elio’s story as he accidentally finds himself becoming ambassador for Earth in a united alien community.

First off: we can all agree that this trailer is stunning. It’s still sometimes a bit mind-boggling to think that 3D-animated feature length films didn’t even exist 30 years ago. And now look what’s possible! The visuals are absolutely beautiful.

The lighting is also very impressive as always.

New Characters

We don’t have a whole load of details on the characters of Elio yet, but the subtitles from the trailer have given us some names. Elio is going to be voiced by Yonas Kibreab, and his mom Olga Solis will be voiced by America Ferrera.

And other alien ambassadors are called: Ambassador Turais, Ambassador Helix, and then Ambassador Grigon who we know is voiced by Brad Garrett. Brad Garrett has voiced lots of great Pixar characters over the years, including: Dim from A Bug’s Life, Bloat in Finding Nemo, and Gusteau in Ratatouille. What a range!

Burrow Reference

Elio takes a sneaky pic of this strange new world he’s found himself in, but did anyone else notice his phone case is quite familiar? That’s because it’s a reference to Pixar’s 2D short Burrow, written and directed by Madeline Sharafian. It’s been confirmed by the director herself!

This isn’t even the first time Burrow has cropped up in a feature length Pixar movie. Turning Red had plenty Burrow bunnies – on posters, and in the movie itself.

Multiple Worlds

It looks like Elio isn’t just on an alien planet: he’s in some massive gathering of multiple different alien species – the United Advanced Species of the Universe. If you look closely at the wider shots, you’ll see there are lots of civilisations with different gravitational fields. I wonder how many different worlds Elio will get to visit as Ambassador for Earth?

Elio’s release date is currently slated for March 1, 2024.

The post Hidden Details In First Elio Trailer appeared first on Upcoming Pixar.

New Posters

First, these mashup posters reference Turning Red, Brave, Soul and Wall-E. The “Burning Red” poster was taken down from Pixar’s social media pages quite soon after posting, almost certainly because of the current North American wildfires.

Which is your favourite? It might have to be “Soil” for us.

Brand New Clip

The “Soil” poster features the character Clod, who stars in the latest clip released on Pixar’s YouTube channel which you can watch below:

It’s so fun to see the elements literally interacting with one another! We still can’t get over how gorgeous and well constructed Ember’s animation is, and look at how Clod enjoys getting a little shower of water from the passing train. It’s the little things!

The post Elemental – Mashup Posters, New Clip appeared first on Upcoming Pixar.

Before watching the beginning 20 or so minutes of Elemental, director Peter Sohn took to the stage to introduce his second feature. Just a few days prior the final shot of the film had finished rendering! We were some of the first to officially seen the final animation alongside the gorgeous score courtesy of composer Thomas Newman.

Though it has Pixar’s signature outside-the-box worldbuilding and humor, Elemental has a grounded story at its core. It is one in a long line of Pixar films that sprouted from a director’s own story. The film is “a very personal project” for Sohn as it is directly inspired by his journey as well as the life and sacrifices of his parents. There were three main pieces that came together to form Elemental:

1. Sohn’s parents immigrated from South Korea to the Bronx in the ’70s, and his father opened up a grocery store that attracted immigrant customers, creating a community like “one sort of big salad bowl of cultures, languages, and foods.”
2. Growing up in a New York neighborhood, the periodic table to Sohn’s eyes became just another highly diverse community. In this apartment complex, platinum and gold happily lived side by side but “be careful of mercury because they have toxic relationships!”
3. Sohn’s marriage to a non-Korean woman presented a bit of a problem for his family initially. “My grandmother’s dying words were ‘marry Korean!'” Sohn explained and the idea of stepping outside of a cultural comfort zone became a building block for the film’s story.

The following day, we got to hear from several key members of the production team. Their discussion of the various challenges Elemental presented and the unique solutions made much of the footage we had seen earlier even more impressive in hindsight. Some interesting insights:

• Don Shank, the production designer, explained how the artists needed to work backwards by finding design and then creating an appropriate visual language. They needed to “elementalize the world for the characters.” A chair couldn’t simply be a chair, but a furnace-like construction specifically for fire people.
• Sanjay Bakshi, the VFX supervisor, admitted the film presented “a terrifying challenge” because the scale was intimidating. It all started with Ember and balancing cartooniness with realism. Every three weeks, the artists were tasked with coming up with a new version of Ember, one that best reflected the concept of a character that wasn’t on fire but was fire herself.
• Jeremie Talbot, the character supervisor, explained they constantly worked from Sohn’s initial pitch, which was that the elements were not human. Animation depicts flesh and bone through caricature but the characters of Element City were meant to be actual fire and water, and so required a more malleable and fluid depiction.

Afterwards, we had the chance to draw Ember and Wade with head of story Jason Katz. We were also treated to a walk through the upper floor of the Steve Jobs building. As they do with every upcoming feature, Pixar had curated an art gallery of various production sketches, design work, and concept art the Pixar artists had created to bring Sohn’s story to the screen. We’re excited to share more art with you in the coming weeks so stay tuned!

It was this writer’s first visit to Emeryville. Passing through the Pixar Animation Studios gate and walking past the iconic Pixar Ball and Luxo Jr. was an incredible feeling. To top it all off, being present to have an exclusive first look at Elemental and hear more about its production was an amazing experience. So much love, creativity, and innovation was poured into this film, and even before learning about the artists’ efforts, we could see it all on the screen.

We can’t wait to watch the entire story unfold when Elemental hits theaters June 16th!

The post Our Exclusive Look at ‘Elemental’ (and Details from the Press Event) appeared first on Upcoming Pixar.

Elemental follows Ember, a spirited fire denizen of Element City who is reluctant to leave the enclave of Firetown and firmly believes “elements don’t mix.” That is, until an unexpected encounter with water guy Wade, her polar opposite in terms of element and personality, pulls her into the wider world.

Though Pixar’s films have always boasted striking colors and design, the animation on display in Elemental clearly shows how far the studio has pushed the visual envelope. Whether in stills or in motion, the characters of Pixar’s newest immersive world are a treat for the eyes.

This is the second directorial feature film for Peter Sohn after 2015’s The Good Dinosaur. He was part of the story team alongside John Hoberg, Kat Likkel, and Brenda Hsueh, who also were responsible for the screenplay. Elemental features the voice talents of Leah Lewis and Mamoudou Athie for Ember and Wade, respectively, as well as Ronnie del Carmen, Shila Ommi, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Catherine O’Hara, Mason Wertheimer, and Joe Pera.

Stay tuned for continuing coverage, including details from the press meet Upcoming Pixar was invited to attend, where we got to watch footage from the film and hear more about its inception and production!

The post Welcome to the World of ‘Elemental’ appeared first on Upcoming Pixar.

“The Art Of Elemental” cover revealed

The art book for Elemental is arriving on May 25th, just a few weeks before the film’s June 16th release date. These “Art Of” books are always a joy to look at, featuring beautiful concept art and character designs. The cover was recently revealed and it’s so charming! The city and art style is giving us Monstropolis vibes.

Pete Docter on Lightyear , sequels, and diversity in storytelling

Pete Docter, who just received the Winsor McCay award at the 50th Annie Awards, recently spoke to The Wrap about his work as Chief Creative Officer at Pixar. You’ll find that many news sites have picked up on the dramatic negatives from the interview: i.e. why did Lightyear not perform well at the box office? A question which Docter gives a reasonable answer to, although 2022 was always going to be a weird year for the box office, especially with Disney+ in the picture too.

But what I found more interesting from this interview was his thoughts on diversity in storytellling, and his sneaky little hints at what Inside Out 2 might entail (lots of emotion, it sounds like!). And he even talks about how Aphton Corbin, director of Twenty Something, is working on something. The whole interview is a hugely positive and fun read!

Obviously animation moves in slow motion, so it’s taken a long time to turn trajectory, but to bring more diverse voices to director positions, to leadership, creative leadership. And yet, hold on to the wide audience appeal. We do feel like there is a real universality in specificity. By that I mean, the more specific you are about a person, their origin, where they came from, what their story is, somehow the more universally it applies to everybody. 

Pete Docter, The Wrap

Domee Shi talks Turning Red and new projects

Director Domee Shi has also just had a really excellent interview published on Letterboxd, where she talks about women in animation, how Turning Red is doing out in the world, and her new role as vice president of creative at Pixar. Here’s her description of her job at Pixar at the moment, hinting at her future feature film.

So my responsibilities are kind of split between [being] in development again on a new feature film that I’m going to direct, but at the same time, I’m helping out other shows and first-time directors navigate the labyrinth of making a movie and trying to be there as a champion for them, but also a shoulder to cry on, a mentor. 

Domee Shi, Letterboxd

The post The Art of Elemental Cover Revealed, And Future Pixar Projects appeared first on Upcoming Pixar.

Elemental is being scored by Thomas Newman

Thomas Newman has previously written the scores for some especially beloved Pixar films: Finding Nemo, WALL·E and Finding Dory. He was originally going to score The Good Dinosaur too before its production schedule totally changed.

Newman’s scores are some of my favourites out of Pixar’s soundtracks. ‘Haiku‘ from Finding Nemo and ‘Define Dancing’ from WALL·E immediately come to mind. His pieces have such an ethereal feel to them, which should work perfectly in a film about elements come to life. We’re in for such a treat!

Dug Days episode ‘Carl’s Date’ delayed

The latest addition to the Dug Days spin-off series to Up, directed by Bob Peterson, was originally due to be released on February 10. Presumably this date was chosen to fit in with Valentine’s Day season, but we’re now on February 14 with no new episode yet. We’re happy to wait until it’s ready, and Carl feels ready too!

There was some (ever ridiculous) social media backlash about the plot of the episode, which will follow Carl going on his first date since Ellie’s death. There are of course many directions this could take, and it’s bound to end up being heart-warming and lovely. But here is director Bob Peterson’s take on the situation regardless:

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