Though he spends a lot of his time these days running the place, Pixar's Pete Docter is still able to make films for the company, and he's back asking big questions, exploring life (and death) and generally pushing the boundaries of the team's ethos in original and interesting ways. His latest, Soul, has a first teaser online.
Soul is story of Joe Gardener (Jamie Foxx) a school band teacher who has always harboured dreams of playing jazz professionally. But shortly after he gets his big break, something happens to him, which finds his soul somehow sent back to a place called the You Seminar, where souls are educated and formed before they are assigned to humans. There, he meets 22 (not her full name, but it's a number too long to quote here), voiced by Tina Fey, who has been observing Earth for a long time and has decided that it's a terrible place. But she does agree to help Joe get back there.
As with Inside Out and even Up, this is Docter on meditative form, exploring heady concepts within the fun of the animated medium. Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson, Phylicia Rashad and Daveed Diggs help fill the voice cast, while the jazzy tunes come from The Late Show With Stephen Colbert band leader Jon Batiste, while, in a more surprising move, Oscar winners Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross are providing the score.
Soul will arrive in the UK on 19 June.