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D23: Pixar Announces 2 New Movies: One Involving Dinosaurs, Another To Go Inside The Human Mind


At D23 today Pixar and Disney announced a pair of Pixar movies, both of them shrouded in a certain degree of mystery.

The first, scheduled to arrive in theaters on November 27th, 2013, is an untitled project about dinosaurs. You might remember that a couple of years ago, screen grabs taken from the “Up” DVD showed production artwork pinned to a wall behind an animator that showed a young boy with a slender-necked dinosaurs. Speculation flew wildly, with most deciding that the artwork was most likely part of an as-yet-unannounced short film. Nope. This new movie, directed by Bob Peterson, who has been a Pixar mainstay since the early days (most recently co-directing “Up” with Pete Docter and providing the voice of Dug the dog), centers around an alternate version of earth wherein the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs missed the planet entirely, so humans have evolved side-by-side with dinosaurs.

If this synopsis conjures up images of the live action “Mario Bros.” movie, you’re not alone. That movie shared a similar conceit, but we’re fairly certain the as-yet-untitled Pixar dinosaur project won’t feature dino-human gangsters and Bob Hoskins (but our fingers are crossed that the Was (Not Was) song “Walk the Dinosaur” will be included in the soundtrack).

The other, more mysterious project is from Pete Docter and scheduled to arrive on May 30, 2014. This is the mystery project that Pixar teased a few months ago. We reached out to our contacts in the animation world recently and we can fill you in on what we know.

According to the official statement, the movie will be produced by Jonas Rivera and directed by Docter, but what they aren’t telling you is that, according to our source, the script is being supplied by “Little Miss Sunshine”/”Toy Story 3” writer Michael Arndt. The current logline provided at D23 says that the film takes place “inside the human mind,” but we were told, more specifically, that it’s about the formation of ideas. It’s being described to us as “wildly ambitious” (even by the admittedly high Pixar standards) which means, hopefully, that all that cash being brought in by “Cars 2” pajamas can be funneled into producing something truly wild and unique. We wish we could have shared this info earlier, but here it is now.

Keep in mind that both of these movies will follow the already announced “Brave” (next summer) and “Monsters University” (summer 2013), and those looking for some fresh, super genius Pixar product after the recent sequel-heavy slate, will be very, very happy.

Sounds great.

Awesome news! Now hopefully people will stop complaining about getting a few sequels from Pixar as though it signals the creative death of the studio. Nice to see them using Arndt again as well.

Both sound pretty vague, but I'm all for any NEW Pixar stuff.

This is Pixar, not Dreamworks. I would hope they could come up with something more original than that. But on the other hand, this will probably be one of Pixar's merchandise friendly movies, so predictable soundtrack choices are probably inevitable.

Minor soundtrack quibbling aside, both of these projects sound awesome. Brave should be interesting, and Monster University will be fun. Let's just hope there's no Cars 3.

Pixar is making Inception?

this

Great, so everyone here will praise it as Pixar's Masterpiece when it's released only to come back here a year later and bash the hell out of it cause it's the cool thing to do.

Nice.

No, because the Pixar version will actually make sense.

My only real fear is that now all Pixar films will try to be "socially conscious message" films like Cars 2, which will pretty much end my interest in seeing any more Pixar films.

The dinosaur movie is going to be called "The Good Dinosaur."

Kind of a dull title.

No Sinclair?

ooooh Dia de los Muertos....this will do well in Mexico, I assume.

That one will have a lot to prove.

Wow, from last August? How did I miss this?

All three sound great, would love to see their take on dinosaurs.

I have a feeling the dinosaur one will be outstanding. Not as excited about the other two, but I question the Day of the Dead one. No idea what audience they're going for with that one.

Most Pixar titles keep things very basic, yet very descriptive of the movie. Titles such as "Up" and, the upcoming, "Brave" may sound dull too but they fit very well.

Agreed. Most of Pixar's titles sound kind of dull.

I'd say the only titles that somewhat interesting are The Incredibles and Ratatouille. Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Monster's Inc, Cars, Wall-E and Up are all pretty dull. Finding Nemo is a little more interesting but still fairly dull. Wall-E was maybe more cryptic than dull. Without knowing anything about the movie, Wall-E made no sense. I remember saying "Huh?" when I first heard that title.

Of course, after the movies actually come out, all of the titles make perfect sense and fit the movies really well in my opinion.

I'm definitely hoping for a return to form for Pixar. I turned Toy Story 3 off halfway through--was bored out of my mind and didn't even bother with Cars 2 since Cars was my least favorite Pixar movie. Brave looks great and the dinoaur movie and the movie about the mind sound great too. Not too interested in the other one.

Not that it's Pixar, but the audience to How to Train Your Dragon wasn't limited to Scottish Vikings.

Dia de Los Muertos should be legit! Here's hoping they get Danny Elfman to score it.

That would be awesome if it was a movie of Grim Fandango. I was thinking recently that I'd love to a see Pixar do a Psychonauts movie.