Pixar’s Next Movie Looks Like Fun

After Pixar’s disappointing run of the Toy Story-ish movie Lightyear and Walt Disney Animation’s disaster of an opening of the animated Strange World, Disney wasted no time in releasing a teaser trailer for Pixar’s next film, Elemental, which already looks like a much better picture. After having told stories from the points of views of bugs, toys, cars and emotions, the studio is now turning its attention to the fictional Element City, where fire-, water-, land- and air-residents live together.

This story introduces Ember Lumen who is described as a tough, quick-witted and fiery young woman and Wade Ripple, a fun, sappy, go-with-the-flow guy who challenges her beliefs about the world they live in. Only Leah Lewis and Mamoudou Athie are listed as the film’s voices and it is unclear from the trailer if they are the only two characters in the movie, but they look like a powerful odd couple if there ever was one.

Elemental is directed by Peter Sohn (known for his work on full-length picture The Good Dinosaur and the short, Partly Cloudy) and produced by Denise Ream (The Good Dinosaur and Cars 2). The trailer looks great, but while I personally like The Good Dinosaur, it didn’t win over many people, so hopefully Elemental does better. It would be shame for Disney to suffer three flops in a row. It opens in theaters on June 16, 2023.