With Pixar’s highly anticipated “Toy Story 4” hitting theaters on June 21, the hype surrounding the studio’s slate of upcoming features has, once again, reached a glorious new high. But rather than going too heavy on the “Toy Story 4” marketing, the folks over at the legendary animation studio have started ramping up excitement for their next film, a fantasy-adventure titled “Onward.” The star-studded film will mark the end of Pixar’s output of sequels and the beginning of a new focus on more original films. You can check out the film’s newly released trailer below.
Featuring Marvel Studios superstars Chris Pratt and Tom Holland as adventure-hungry elf brothers Barley and Ian Lightfoot, “Onward” is written and directed by “Monsters University” helmer Dan Scanlon, produced by Kori Rae, and stars Julia Louis-Dreyfuss and Octavia Spencer as the boys’ mother and a currently unnamed character, respectively. In April 2019, “The Good Dinosaur” composers Mychael and Jeff Danna were announced as the film’s composers.
Speaking to People about the project, Scanlon said, “I absolutely hope people are laughing their heads off and crying their eyes out. My hope is some of the questions that I’m asking in the film will be questions other people are asking about their own lives. And I think that’s what a lot of the times get us to connect to a movie.”
Scanlon’s previous Pixar film, “Monsters University,” hit theaters back in 2013 and to this day is regarded as one of Pixar’s weaker sequels. But attributing the film’s relative critical failure to Scanlon isn’t entirely fair. He was working off Pete Docter’s characters and concepts and couldn’t hope to know them as well as he did.
From the looks of the trailer, though, it seems that Scanlon is back with a fun, inspired directorial effort that will get viewers excited for anything and everything Pixar puts out going forward.