Remember back when Pixar made original movies with regularity? Back before 2010, there’d really only been one big Pixar sequel (that being Toy Story 2, of course), but once the third Toy Story hit, the floodgates opened, and the once-plentiful original intellectual property from the House That Buzz Built slowed to a trickle. Sure, we got films like Inside Out and Coco, but they got kind of lost in the ever-growing pile of terrible sequels, and after the likes of The Incredibles 2, Finding Dory, a Monsters, Inc. prequel, and, God help us, two additional Cars movies, we’re ready for some new material.
Enter Onward, the latest from director Dan Scanlon (Monsters University), a “suburban fantasy” that Disney’s been holding close to the chest ever since last year’s D23 convention. Now, we’ve got some official details about the movie, including its cast. Our four main characters will be played by Chris Pratt, Tom Holland, Octavia Spencer and Julia-Louis Dreyfus, and this info was dropped alongside the title image, which you can see above. We’re kind of excited!
Here’s a brief plot summary, straight from the press release.
“Set in a suburban fantasy world, Disney Pixar’s ‘Onward’ introduces two teenage elf brothers…” — presumably Pratt and Holland — “…who embark on an extraordinary quest to discover if there is still a little magic left out there. ‘At Pixar we try to create stories that come from some kind of personal truth,’ said Scanlon. ‘This film was inspired by my own relationship with my brother.'”
It’s nice that Pixar is starting to remember that their true skill (well, beyond pushing the boundaries of what computer animation can do on the big screen) is extracting tears from grown men and women through whatever means necessary. What we’re saying is that, even though we’ve received nearly two years notice about this one, we’re still going to cry our eyes out. It’s been a while since we’ve had a good cartoon-movie sob, and we don’t know if Toy Story 4 will, given that we might be all cried-out for Woody and pals. This, though… this is that real shit.
Onward hits theaters on March 6, 2020.
Featured image via Disney/Pixar.