Pixar Is Making A Suburban Fantasy Movie

Pixar logo and lamp

After the release of Coco this fall, Pixar will be jumping into sequel territory again with The Incredibles 2 next year and Toy Story 4 the year after that. But once those are out of the way, the studio will return its attention to an original story, which has been revealed to be a fantasy movie that happens in a modern suburban setting.

Directed by Monsters University's Dan Scanlon and produced by Kori Rae, this untitled Pixar movie takes place in a world where magic once existed, but as time wore on, it became too hard and complicated to conjure, and eventually it was replaced by technology. In the modern day, this world looks a lot like ours, only instead of humans, there are elves, trolls, sprites and other mystical creatures. There are also unicorns, although they're considered to be akin to rodents as pests. The main story will revolve around two teenage boys whose father died when they were young, and they will embark on a quest that will allow them to have one last magical day with him. Some of the concept art for this film shown at the D23 presentation included a town with a water tower and a dragon flying over it.

Pixar has explored a lot of different ideas with its movies since 1995, from sentient toys to a parallel world where monsters roam around to an Earth where the dinosaurs never became extinct. This fantasy movie sounds like another unique addition to the bunch. While magic was explored in 2012's Brave, exploring a world that was once filled with it and has now been tossed aside in favor of gadgets and gizmos is an interesting premise. It's a fascinating way to twist the traditional fantasy tropes. The story is also an incredibly personal one for Dan Scanlon, as he talked during the presentation about how his father died when he was young, but years later, he received an audio tape where he heard his dad's voice for the first time. We'll see the main characters in this film experience something similar, only in this case, the magic that still lingers in this universe may allow them to actually see their father.

No release date for this Pixar film was announced, but the studio has two dates set aside for 2020: March 13 and June 19. Keep checking back with CinemaBlend for more information about this project. In the meantime, you can catch Coco in theaters starting November 22. Following that, The Incredibles 2 will be released on June 15, 2018, and Toy Story 4 will follow on June 21, 2019. You can also browse through our comprehensive guide to see what other Disney movies will be released in the coming years.

Adam Holmes
Senior Content Producer

Connoisseur of Marvel, DC, Star Wars, John Wick, MonsterVerse and Doctor Who lore, Adam is a Senior Content Producer at CinemaBlend. He started working for the site back in late 2014 writing exclusively comic book movie and TV-related articles, and along with branching out into other genres, he also made the jump to editing. Along with his writing and editing duties, as well as interviewing creative talent from time to time, he also oversees the assignment of movie-related features. He graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in Journalism, and he’s been sourced numerous times on Wikipedia. He's aware he looks like Harry Potter and Clark Kent.