During a recent interview with Digital Spy, Toy Story 4 Producer, Mark Nielsen noted that Pixar had seven films currently in development. Although we had previously known the release dates of Pixar’s films through 2022, we hadn’t heard of anything past that year. That adds two new films to the roster which were previously unannounced.
Below is a recap of Pixar’s upcoming films (known and projected).
- Onward — March 6, 2020
- Soul — December 25, 2020 (Updated x2 October 8, 2020 – Soul‘s release date has been moved again from Nov 20 streaming on Disney+. Updated April 13 – Soul‘s release was originally June 19)
- Untitled Pixar Film — June 18, 2021
- Untitled Pixar Film — March 11, 2022 (Updated Nov 15 – was previously noted as March 18)
- Untitled Pixar Film — June 17, 2022
- Untitled Pixar Film — June 16, 2023 (Updated Nov 15 – we had previously projected this date, it is now confirmed)
- Untitled Pixar Film — March 15, 2024 (Unconfirmed – our projected release date)
CONFIRMED/POTENTIAL DIRECTORS
Cars 3 Director, Brian Fee and Kevin Reher (Producer) discussed that Brian was working on a new original film during episode 271 of the Empire Film Podcast (July 2017). No additional details were provided, but it was exciting to know that a project was in the works.
Domee Shi was first noted to be directing a feature-length film in a May 2018 Variety article — Pixar later confirmed that the Oscar-winning Director of Bao was working on an original film without providing additional details.
Updated – Nov 14 – Kristen Lester was recently interviewed by her alma mater, Sheridan College where she revealed that she had just wrapped as the head of story on Soul, and is now developing a film for Pixar — additional details can be found in our updated post.
It had previously been noted (and reiterated in February 2016) that Mark Andrews was working on an original film after Brave wrapped. We presume that the film has been placed on hold or was canceled due to the length of time since that film was announced. In fact, we dive into Mark Andrews further in Episode 068 of the Pixar Post Podcast and speculate further.
Updated – We have confirmed that Mark Andrews is no longer at Pixar Animation Studios. Any speculations regarding his upcoming film are no longer in development.
Brad Bird first announced on the Deadline’s Crew Call Podcast (Nov 2018) that he had been working on a screenplay based on the book 1906 for quite some time. The trick was that he hasn’t been able to get a version of the screenplay to click into place yet, so he keeps putting it down and coming back to it.
After listening to the podcast, we immediately started reading 1906 and in the biography section, the author, James Dalessandro noted that “He is the screenwriter of the upcoming Pixar/Warner Bros live-action film 1906 based on this novel.” Interesting.
In January 2019, Brad was interviewed by Variety and noted that his next film would be a blended live-action film that would contain about 20 minutes of animation. (Brad also noted that this project was planned to be scored by Michael Giacchino as well.) Updated – It should be noted that Brad’s shift to the blended animation/live-action project is not the same as 1906 (which would be a completely different project).
News of Brad’s musical project was updated very recently as Brad is a keynote speaker at the View Conference in Turin, Italy (October 21-25, 2019). His accompanying bio on the View Conference website notes, “He is currently writing a live-action musical for Sony Pictures which will include twenty minutes of animation and feature music by Michael Giacchino.” As noted above with Mark Andrews, we also speculate and share more about Brad Bird in episode 068 of the Pixar Post Podcast.
This more than likely takes Brad off the table for a known Pixar film, unless it ties into Jim Morris’ (President, Pixar Animation Studios) recent comments about wanting to push the content on Disney+ to have a Toy Story-level impact on streaming (though this is unlikely).
Jim noted, “we are playing with different types of storytelling and things that could only be done in a number of different shows that have to thread together in some way.” Could Pixar be partnering with Sony on an upcoming project and handling the animation portion, while Sony handles the live-action portion?
Outside of Brad, that leaves folks who have directed previous Pixar projects like the genius, Andrew Stanton, vocal-and-story veteran Bob Peterson (who is directing Forky Asks A Question), the soft-spoken influencer Peter Sohn, or any of the up-and-coming SparkShorts directors like Kristen Lester, Rosana Sullivan, or Brian Larsen. This could also include folks like Ronnie Del Carmen, Steve Purcell, Angus MacLane, Enrico Casarosa, Adrian Molina, and so many more — time will tell and we can’t wait.
UPDATED — Since it was discussed in the comments, we also wanted to include what’s next for Toy Story 4 Director, Josh Cooley. In a recent MovieWeb interview for the in-home release of Toy Story 4, Josh said, “I just took a vacation and a kind of coming back slowly from that, which is great and I have some original ideas I want to pitch and see if any of those takeoff. So we’ll see.” Because of the length of time it takes to produce a film (an average of 4.5 years and since he’s just at the pitch-stage, we assume he wouldn’t be noted for one of the projects listed above…but, we can’t wait for more from Josh as well.
UPDATED — April 30, 2020. Unfortunately, Josh Cooley confirmed via Twitter that he was leaving Pixar to direct an animated Transformers film.
In addition to the notes from Josh Cooley listed above, he also mentioned in a December 9, 2019 article with Yahoo! Entertainment that he is offering some assistance on Pete Docter’s Soul and has begun developing his next film.
Pixar Post — T.J. & Julie
