At last year’s D23 event, Disney and their Pixar team made a big show of announcing two new projects from the legendary Emeryville-based animation studio, unveiling plans for a dinosaur-themed pic from Bob Peterson and Pete Sohn and “a trip inside the mind” from Pete Docter. Yesterday, at the CinemaCon event in Las Vegas, they rolled out one more, with John Lasseter revealing that Lee Unkrich is working on something revolving around the Mexican Holiday of Dia De Los Muertos.
The event is celebrated throughout Mexico and around the world in other cultures between the November 1 and 2 each year. Time is spent honouring family members and others who have died, building altars and visiting graves with gifts. More excitingly for film fans, the day gives rise to parades, parties, colourful costumes and face paint and a weirdly gorgeous macabre celebration. Think artwork like this and/or the middle section of this Oscar-nominated short animation.
There’s no sign of a release date yet, but with Toy Story 3’s Unkrich at the helm and producer Darla K Anderson overseeing things, we’re already excited to see what Team Pixar is planning for this one.
That aforementioned dino project, meanwhile, is now called The Good Dinosaur, and will still feature the basic storyline positing what would have happened if the asteroid had missed Earth and the dinosaurs never became extinct. Peterson and Sohn will be joined on that one by Incredibles producer John Walker, with a US release date now set for May 2014.
As for Docter’s inner mind ‘toon? We’re going to have to wait a little longer than original planned, as the film – which explores characters inside the mind of a young girl – is now going to be hitting US screens in June 2015. Patience, people, patience…
Disney Animation's Snow Queen-based tale Frozen will be jumping into the November 2013 slot vacated by the mind pic. All in all, though, it’s an exciting time once more to be a Pixar fan, especially considering how worried some have been about their recent reliance on sequels. The company’s latest original, Brave, hits on August 22. Seen the latest trailer? Go watch – ‘tis beautiful.
In other Mouse House news, the company also wheeled out Kermit and Miss Piggy to formally announce the Muppets sequel, which now has some teaser artwork (above, though it's nothing special since barely a word has been written yet). It’ll boast a script by original Muppets writer Nick Stoller and the film’s director James Bobin.