Summary
D23,the Walt Disney Company’s official fandom megafest is live this weekend in Anaheim, California, and with it the House of Mouse rolls out several days of announcements for its biggest upcoming projects across feature film, TV, streaming, parks and more.
Known for some of the most successful film franchises of all-time includingToy Story,Inside Out,Finding Nemoand more, the venerable Pixar animation studio formed a key segment of Disney’s day 1 announcements. In an announcement slate live from Anaheim, Pixar Chief Creative Officer Pete Docter helmed a gauntlet of first-looks and announcements, offering both new footage and general announcements. Here’s what’s coming up on the horizon.
Original Film Projects
Pixar is a studio that has historically developed projects with a mixture of both leaning on its past successes while also focusing on crafting original projects. In recent years the studio has put out a number of charming original movies includingSoul,LucaandTurning Red, the timing of which unfortunately bore the brunt of the pandemic-era box office blackout in stark contrast to their widespread critical acclaim. Using Disney’s biggest stage, Pixar took the chance to both highlight an upcoming feature as well as announce a second from a big-name animation talent.
Elio, Pixar’s new spacesci-fi adventure, was given new highlights and art to get fans ready for its theatrical release on July 08, 2025. Centered around a little boy who gets mixed up with an interplanetary council of aliens that mistake him for the leader of the planet Earth, the film is hoping to capture the studio’s artistic specialty, combining fantastical adventures with stories rooted in emotionally-resonant human relationships.
Pixar also officially revealed its latest original feature film inHoppers, directed byWe Bare Bearscreator Daniel Chong. Focusing on an animal lover who uses new technology to “hop” into a realistic symbiotic beaver android, the film combines the animal kingdom, the most popular subject in the history of animation, with the studio’s evergreen fascination with the imaginative possibilities of technology (a natural theme for Pixar, which was originally started as a research and development project of the lateSteve Jobs). Pixar teased original concept art for the project, as well as announcing a voice cast that includes Jon Hamm, Piper Curda and Bobby Moynihan.
Two Big Projects for Pixar’s Continued Push into Long-form Series
Pixar is a studio that forged a name for itself by spearheading CGI animated films, which have continued to be the dominant strain of big-budget American animation ever since. While its efforts in streaming series over individual feature and short films are a much newer development (obviously driven by Disney’s massive original content push for the Disney+ streaming service), the studio is expanding into the medium with two big projects. The first is an original series,Win or Lose, is billed by Disney as Pixar’s first “original series” (of course, to distinguish it from the 2021Monsters Inc.spinoff,Monsters at Work). The series setup is simple, a children’s softball game examined from the interior perspectives of everyone ranging from the children on the field, to their somewhat overbearing parents, to even the lovesick woes of a strung-out umpire. The project has been given an official Disney+ release date of Jul 16, 2025. Pixar has publicly released a teaser trailer for the series:
For its second series project, Pixar is setting its mind’s-eye back over to Inside Out. WithInside Out 2coming off ofone of the highest-grossing theatrical runsof any animated film ever and firmly re-establishing Pixar’s status as a box office juggernaut, teen protagonist Riley and her multi-emotional mind get a whole new dimension to explore inDream Productions, focusing on the creation and production of nighttime dreams. Focusing on a mental “dream director” known as Paula Persimmon, the four-episode series is set to be something of a parody of moviemaking. The series is set to debut on Disney+ in 2025.
Big Franchise Sequels (with a Major Final Announcement)
At almost 30 years since Pixar’s first filmToy Storyrevolutionized American animation,the iconic toyshave continued to bring child’s play to the big screen. Now, withToy Story 5, the series is set to handle a very modern spin on how children relate to playtime. The fifth installment of the franchise is set to center around the relationship of toys with modern technology. While video games and other gadgets have always occupied something of the periphery of theToy Storyworld, a plotline focusing on digital entertainment would both be a new avenue to flesh out the world, not to mention one that would resonate with the realistic experiences of today’s younger generation. Toy Story 5 is currently projected to release in theaters on June 13, 2025.
While the presentation to this point had included more than enough content to capture the attention of any fan of the studio for the time being, the slate announcements concluded with one major announcement for one of its biggest franchises. Brad Bird, creator of several of Pixar’s most acclaimed films includingRatatouilleandThe Incrediblesfranchise, arrived to close out the presentations and offer up a big final announcement—he and Pixar are officially working onThe Incredibles 3. This project is still a long way off, with Disney announcing that Bird is still only currently in development on the project before it formally moves into production. Of course, with bothIncrediblesmovies being big box office successes and Disneybeginning to highlight the franchise more prominentlyacross both its games and parks and resorts, it’s safe to assume the Incredible family is coming back in a big way.
Between these announcements, it’s obvious that Pixar has a lot going on. With the confidence of Disney in greenlighting such a big upcoming slate, it’s clear that one of animation’s most stories studios has a lot to look forward to.
