At the Annecy Film Festival, the Pixar studio took stock of its future projects and took the opportunity to announce a new film with a very different visual style from what the studio had accustomed us to until now.
A bold new project for Pixar
As we reach the halfway point of the 2020s, it is interesting to take a look back at the last five years. After surpassing $1 billion with Brad Bird's Incredibles 2 (2018) and Josh Cooley's Toy Story 4 (2019), both of which won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, Pete Docter – newly appointed as the studio's chief creative officer following the abrupt departure of John Lasseter – promises to drop sequels and focus on 100% original films. A bold decision, but one that will clash with the pandemic and the release of Disney+.
So, after the theatrical failure of the very enjoyable Onward, Disney decided to successively release Soul by Pete Docter, Luca by Enrico Casarosa and Red Alert by Domee Shi directly on Disney+. In addition to removing the event nature of these three films, Disney also decided to lay off several Pixar employees in order to save money and redefine the studio's priorities by ordering sequels and spin-offs of their great classics. While the failure of Buzz Lightyear in 2022 seems to have shown the limits of such a choice, the triumph of Inside Out 2 - which was the biggest box office success worldwide for an animated film before be overtaken by a Chinese film - demonstrated that even under constraints, Pixar can be very creative. Good news!
That being said, the arrival between 2026 and 2029 of Toy Story 5, The Incredibles 3 and Coco2 makes Pixar's original films all the more important. To date, Pixar has announced Elio (scheduled for release on June 18, 2025) and Hoppers (in March 2026). Good news, a new original film was unveiled today, during Pete Docter's panel at the Annecy Animation Film Festival. It's called Gatto, directed by Enrico Casarosa (Luca). The film will tell the story of a music-loving black cat, suffering from the many superstitions of the people of Venice and in debt to the local cat mafia. The film draws heavily on the Italian-born director's childhood memories.
Announced for summer 2027, Gatto is also a revolution for Pixar, as it will move away from the computer-generated 3D animation style the studio has perfected since Toy Story, its first feature film in 1995. Indeed, Enrico Casarosa's film will instead feature a hand-painted animation style. Early reports compare the film to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Arcane. After Toy Story 5, Pixar announces this new film with a revolutionary style. Moreover, we will be amused by the fact that Pixar is offering a feature film inspired by a black cat, following the critical triumph of Gints Zilbalodis' film Flow, which won the Oscar for Best Animated Film at the beginning of the year.
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