There’s more good news for Pixar – and it comes via a Disney movie. The past few years have been a mixed bag for the animation studio. It was hurt by the Covid-19 pandemic and rise of Disney+, with many of its films debuting on the platform, and box office returns suffering as a result. The billion-dollar hit Inside Out 2 bucked that trend, and while Hoppers‘ box office isn’t going to scale those heights, it is tracking to be a solid enough hit that will then be boosted by streaming, rather than being reliant upon it.
Looking both short- and long-term, Pixar is continuing its strategy of mixing original films with sequels, including Toy Story 5, Gatto, and Incredibles 3 over the next few years. Recently, Disney shuffled its release calendar and added a summer 2029 release for one of its own animation movies – that will mark the first time since Winnie the Pooh in 2011 that a Walt Disney Animation Studios film has released in the summer, which has typically been reserved for Pixar. In return, an untitled Pixar movie has been set for November 21st, 2029.
Pixar’s 2029 Movie Is Likely Coco 2 – And It Should Be Huge
That November Pixar movie will almost certainly be Coco 2. The film was confirmed around this time last year, with Lee Unkrich and co-director Adrian Molina both returning. There hasn’t been much news on the project since then, which isn’t unusual: animated movies take a long time to happen. That 2029 slot seems an ideal fit with its timeline (and is what was suggested at the time), and aligns nicely with the original movie: Coco, which hit in 2017, was the last time a Pixar movie took the Thanksgiving slot rather than a Disney animation.
In this particular case, it makes a lot of sense. Coco is themed around the Day of the Dead (or Día de los Muertos), which traditionally takes place in early November. While Coco 2 might be releasing a few weeks later in the United States, it’s very likely that it will arrive before then in Mexico, in order to tie in with the holiday. That means it’ll be able to benefit from that (and be very heavily marketed around it), and then capitalize on Thanksgiving as well.
This worked wonders for Coco almost a decade ago. The movie released in Mexico one month before the United States, and became the then-highest-grossing film in that market, en route to a global haul of $814 million. In terms of original movies from Pixar, only Inside Out ($858m) and Finding Nemo ($940m) made more. The sequels to both of those movies grossed over $1 billion, a feat the three most recent Pixar sequel movies have all achieved as well (Inside Out 2, Toy Story 4, and Incredibles 2).
Coco 2, with its double-holiday release, and reputation as one of the best Pixar movies of the last 10 years, should continue that trend and looks a safe bet to smash the billion-dollar mark when it eventually releases.
Coco is available to stream on Disney+.
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