Pete Docter: Last News

Pete Docter, Pixar‘s Chief Creative Officer, explains what the animation studio expects from their sequels.

Disney’s famous flywheel came to life for the general public Saturday as studio executives, Imagineers and talent gathered on a SXSW stage to illustrate world building of beloved franchises as they move from TV and film to theme parks and back.

Kelsey Mann is the director behind the year’s top-grossing movie, Inside Out 2. At $1.7 billion worldwide, his sequel to the Oscar-winning 2015 Pixar toon not only outgrossed that one to become the biggest Pixar hit of all time but won wide critical acclaim for taking to new heights of imagination and invention the concept of all these various emotions operating inside a young girl’s head, anxiety being chief among them.

Matt Minton mminton@variety.com Director Kelsey Mann, producer Mark Nielsen, writers Meg LeFauve and Dave Holstein and composer Andrea Datzman sat down with Clayton Davis, Variety’s Senior Awards Editor, at the Variety FYC Screening presented by Disney & Pixar, to chat about their work on “Inside Out 2.” The billion-dollar animated hit “Inside Out 2” introduces an older Riley, now age 13, as she enters high school and discovers a new set of emotions including Anxiety (Maya Hawke), Envy (Ayo Edebiri), Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos) and Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser). As a director, Mann was drawn in to how universal the experience of being a teenager is: “It’s always this thing that everybody kind of knows about.” For “Inside Out 2,” Mann assembled an advisory group of teenage girls ages 13 to 16 to give their thoughts on every version of the film.

Disney Pixar’s long awaited Toy Story 5.The actor is reprising his role as Buzz Lightyear for the latest movie, which is due for release on June 19, 2026.He told Collider: “It’s a very, very clever story.Do you wanna do five of these [movies]? I don’t really believe it’s about the money. I’m sure they want it to be a success, but that’s not why they did it.

Pixar‘s new animated series Win or Lose set for a 2025 premiere on Disney+ will no longer include a transgender storyline.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today revealed 15 winners of its 2024 Student Academy Awards competition, culled from nearly 2,700 entries spanning 738 colleges and universities around the world. See the list below.

Pixar‘s Inside Out 2 is set to begin streaming on Disney+ on September 25, the studio announced via its social media channels on Thursday.

While Marvel and Lucasfilm had their day at Disney’s recent D23 Expo, there’s an argument to be made that Pixar had some of the biggest flexes at the trade show. The animation studio revealed a new “Incredibles 3” sequel was in the works, revealed their mystery 2023 film as something called “Hoppers” and some new details about “Toy Story 5,” unveiled the inaugural trailer for their first TV series, “Win Or Lose,” and revealed the title for this new “Inside Out” series spin-off called, “Dream Factory.” Coming off the hit of “Inside Out 2,” which grossed $1.6 billion worldwide and is currently the highest-grossing film of 2024, the highest-earning animation film of all time, and the tenth-highest-grossing movie of all time, Pixar and Docter are already thinking about an “Inside Out 3,” which is expected given the box office bonanza it yielded.

Pixar have confirmed that Incredibles 3 is now in production, and have announced a spin-off series for Inside Out.The animation studio made a series of project announcements at Disney’s Entertainment Showcase Panel on Friday (August 9), also sharing that the already-announced Toy Story 5 will be receiving a 2026 release.Incredibles 3 was not given a firm release date, but it was announced that Brad Bird, who directed both of the previous films, as well as The Iron Giant and Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, will also return to helm the third instalment in the superhero franchise.The Inside Out series – their first ever such series – will be titled Dream Productions and will hit Disney+ in 2025. It is set between the first two films and will explore the studio inside Riley’s mind where her dreams are literally made.“This is our first original series, and we wanted to do something unique and bold, unlike anything we’ve done before,” said Pixar veteran Pete Docter at the showcase.It follows on from the recent cinema release of Inside Out 2, which is the highest-grossing film of 2024 so far, the highest-grossing Pixar film ever and the second highest-grossing animated film of all time, after the 2019 version of The Lion King.The film reconnects with Riley, now 13 years old, whose emotions from the first film are now joined by Anxiety, Embarrassment, Envy and Ennui.

released the film’s first full-length trailer online.The footage introduces characters new (Moana now has a little sister) and familiar, like her pet pig Pua and the Kakamora, a band of dart-blowing coconut-clad pirates.Johnson also announced that he’d be continuing his long-running work on Disney projects to create a “Monster Jam” live-action movie.The studio did not announce any updates to Johnson’s other Disney project, the live-action “Moana,” that is in development.Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni teased the May 2026 Star Wars film “The Mandalorian & Grogu,” which they said only started filming recently. Favreau said he felt compelled to “put something together” for the showcase and showed a brief clip featuring the title characters, as he put it, “on a whole new journey.”Law spoke about “Star Wars: Skeleton Crew,” announcing it will be coming to Disney+ on Dec.

Adam B. Vary Senior Entertainment Writer Pixar‘s superhero family is suiting up again. “Incredibles 3” is in development at Pixar Animation Studios, with writer-director Brad Bird — who helmed 2004’s “The Incredibles” and 2018’s “Incredibles 2” — returning for the threequel.

Pete Docter, the Chief Creative Officer at Pixar Animation Studios, is teasing the Inside Out spinoff series coming to Disney+ in 2025.

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor The ongoing struggle to elevate animated features to the same level of best-picture recognition as live-action films will undoubtedly resurface by year’s end. This time, the spotlight will be on Pixar‘s highly successful sequel, “Inside Out 2,” a film that could bring joy and success amid a dark cloud hovering around Hollywood studios. With debut director Kelsey Mann taking over from Pete Docter, the second installment follows Riley (Kensington Tallman) during her teenage years.

J. Kim Murphy Don’t be afraid to catch feelings. Disney and Pixar’s “Inside Out 2” just scored the biggest box office opening day of the year so far, earning a spectacular $62 million across Friday and preview screenings from 4,440 locations.

Pete Docter, Chief Creative Officer at Pixar Animation Studios, is shooting down the idea of remaking classics into live-action features.

Coming on to direct the sequel of an Oscar-winning animated feature is a daunting prospect, but luckily Kelsey Mann had producer Mark Nielsen to help with Inside Out 2. Having worked as an associate producer on the original Inside Out, Nielsen was thrilled when Pete Docter, who directed the original, suggested he work with Mann on the sequel.

Disney Legend Richard M. Sherman, half of the Academy Award-winning songwriting team of the Sherman Brothers with his late brother, fellow Legend Robert B. Sherman, died today at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Beverly Hills at 95 from age-related illness.

EXCLUSIVE: Disney/Pixar‘s Inside Out 2 came on tracking this AM and sources are telling us it’s bound to be the highest opening at the domestic box office year-to-date, inching out Dune Part Two ($82.5M) and Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire ($80M) with a 3-day between $80M-$85M. Inside Out 2 opens over the Pixar tried-and-true Fathers Day weekend of June 14-16.

In an intriguing move, yet retro, move for Disney on the 2024 theatrical release calendar which is starving for product, three Pixar movies –2020’s Soul, 2021’s Luca and 2022’s Turning Red –which were sidelined on Disney+ during the pandemic, are getting special engagement theatrical runs. We hear all three will receive moderate to wide theatrical runs. The titles will remain in play on Disney+ during their new theatrical window.

Jordan Moreau Pixar‘s “Soul,” “Turning Red” and “Luca” are coming to theaters after they originally had streaming-only releases on Disney+ during the COVID-19 pandemic. The three movies will come to theaters nationwide in 2024, with tickets going on sale Jan. 2.