Disney+ Pixar's Turning Red (2022)

[Jake Lipson]

Title: Turning Red (2022)

Tagline: Growing up is a beast.

Genre: Animation, Comedy, Family

Director: Domee Shi

Cast: Rosalie Chiang, Sandra Oh

Release: 2022-03-10

Plot: Thirteen year old Mei is experiencing the awkwardness of being a teenager with a twist – when she gets too excited, she transforms into a giant red panda.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Turning Red is the next Pixar film currently scheduled for release in March 2022.

The first trailer and poster are here. Poster via Disney social media.

So basically it seems like this girl is a pre-teen Hulk who turns red instead of green. It looks cute, but this trailer isn't grabbing my attention to quite the degree that Pixar films usually do. We'll see if I get more excited about it before it opens. This is obviously a really brief look.

The poster also specifically says that she is a student from 2002-2003 which makes this a period piece from 20 yeas ago. That's a noticeable distinction.

Turning Red is directed by Domee Shi, who previously directed the short Bao which played with Incredibles 2.

I really hated Bao, so much so that I chose not to see Incredibles 2 in theaters a second time so I wouldn't have to sit through it again. But I know a lot of people liked it. Certainly I wish her well for her feature debut. I think this is also the first time Pixar has had a solo woman director on a feature, so that is important progress. Brenda Chapman was on Brave for a long time until she was fired and ended up retaining only co-directing credit on it.

We'll see on this one.

 

[Chris Will]

It is really odd. So many of Pixar's teasers leave me feeling eh but, in the end, most of their movies turn out to be entertaining. This is another, didn't do much for me but, we will see next year.

 

[JimmyO]

Well, I have to see it. It's all based on my city, Toronto. I am already locked in lol

 

[Greg.K]

Guess it's time for the Aughts to have their time in the nostalgia sun now.

 

[Johnny Angell]

One thing Pixar knows how to do is tell a story about emotion. This looks to be brimming with emotion. I’m optimistic.

 

[Jake Lipson]

New trailer:



Although of course the animation itself looks nice, from a story perspective this continues to do nothing for me personally.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Also, here's the second poster via Pixar social media:

 

[TravisR]

Pixar always gets my money so I'll be seeing this.

 

[DavidJ]

Pixar always gets my money so I'll be seeing this.

Same here. I wasn’t enamored with the trailer, but there looks like some fun moments.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Billie Eilish and Finneas are contributing songs for the movie's fictional boy band. And Ludwig Göransson is composing the score for this film.

Pixar’s ‘Turning Red’ Features New Songs by Billie Eilish and Finneas

Disney and Pixar have released a new trailer for the animated feature “Turning Red,” and it showcases new music from Grammy-winning singer and songwriter Billie Eilish and Finneas. “Tur…

variety.com

Interestingly, this is the third consecutive Pixar film to feature a score from a composer who they haven't worked with before. Soul of course was composed by John Batiste, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. Luca was composed by Dan Romer. And now Göransson.

I love the work of Pixar's regular composers, but it is also great to see them bringing in different talent for their films.

As a side note, writing this post just made wonder whether or not Randy Newman is going to be on board to score Lightyear.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Turning Red is skipping theaters and going straight to Disney+. This is the third Pixar film in a row to do this after Soul and Luca.

Pixar’s ‘Turning Red’ Skips Theaters, Will Debut on Disney Plus in March

Pixar’s upcoming film “Turning Red” is skipping theaters and will debut exclusively on Disney Plus on March 11, Disney announced on Friday. It will be free for subscribers. The fa…

variety.com

Considering that Disney recently gave Encanto a 30-day theatrical window, I have to say I'm surprised by this move.

 

[Jason_V]

Looking at the calendar for March, the only "big" release I see is The Batman. And the audience for The Batman and Turning Red are not the same, leading me to believe it's not a competition issue. This is designed, purely, to get people to sign up for Disney+ or stay active subscribers.

Either way, it's really fine by me. After our experience at the theater for Spider-Man, I'd rather watch the movie at home.

 

[Jake Lipson]

“Disney Plus subscribers around the world enthusiastically embraced Pixar’s Academy Award-winning ‘Soul’ and the critically-acclaimed ‘Luca’ when they premiered exclusively on the service, and we look forward to bringing them Pixar’s next incredible feature film ‘Turning Red’,” said Kareem Daniel, chairman of Disney Media & Entertainment Distribution, in a statement. “Given the delayed box office recovery, particularly for family films, flexibility remains at the core of our distribution decisions as we prioritize delivering the unparalleled content of The Walt Disney Company to audiences around the world.”

I'm sure that Omicron is part of this decision, but it seems odd to me because Encanto and Sing 2 have done respectable business in theaters right now. Sing 2 from Universal just debuted on demand today, so it had a short theatrical window, but it did have one.

I defended the move of Soul and Luca to Disney+, but having three films in a row skip theatrical release must be disappointing for Pixar employees. I said at the time that Soul and Luca were going to get seen on Disney+, and I believe that will be the case for Turning Red as well. However, the theatrical market is more substantial now than when those titles came out.

Pixar also got a lot of criticism for being reliant on sequels because they had Finding Dory, Cars 3, Incredibles 2 and Toy Story 4 in relatively quick succession to each other. They have now had four original films in a row, but all of them have been primarily streaming releases. Onward had two weeks in theaters due to its unfortunate timing as the last major release prior to shutdowns, and the next three after that were streaming only. This means that Lightyear (a Toy Story spinoff) is going to be the first Pixar film to have a lengthy theatrical window since Toy Story 4. I am not laying this totally at Disney's feet because Covid is obviously a factor, but it is kind of unfortunate that the non-sequels are the ones that caught in this position. Because of its connection to Toy Story, I can't imagine that they would do the same thing for Lightyear this summer.

The Turning Red trailer screened for me In front of Spider-Man. I bet the theaters are going to remove that now, as they should, since they won't want to promote a movie that they're not going to get to show.

 

[Edwin-S]

Disney appears.to be turning Pixar into a feeder for Disnay+. Disney appears to have no confidence that these original stories from. PIXAR have any strength to attract a large box office.

It also interesting that all three of the Pixar film going straight to D+ have had non-caucasion leads.

 

[Jake Lipson]

It also interesting that all three of the Pixar film going straight to D+ have had non-caucasion leads.

Are you implying that this is a reason for these films to bypass theaters? If so, I completely disagree with that. Raya and the Last Dragon and Encanto from Disney Animation got theatrical play with non-white leads. Also, Luca in Luca is Italian, but his voice actor, Jacob Tremblay, is white.

Disney also had great success last year with Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings from Marvel which featured a predominantly Asian cast. I don't see any reason to believe that Disney suddenly has a problem with non-white actors in their theatrical releases.

 

[Edwin-S]

Are you implying that this is a reason for these films to bypass theaters? If so, I completely disagree with that. Raya and the Last Dragon and Encanto from Disney Animation got theatrical play with non-white leads. Also, Luca in Luca is Italian, but his voice actor, Jacob Tremblay, is white.

Disney also had great success last year with Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings from Marvel which featured a predominantly Asian cast. I don't see any reason to believe that Disney suddenly has a problem with non-white actors in their theatrical releases.

ENCANTO was a.musical.
I really don't care that the VA in LUCA was white. The character in the film wasn't and Shang-Chi was a Marvel film that was going to get a theatrical release no matter who the lead was.
RAYA was aiming for the Chinese market, so it was going.to get a theatrical release for.that alone.

Edit: Also whether the lack of causcasian leads in Pixar's last three films was a factor in the decision to go straight to D+ can only be a.speculation. I just find it interesting that all three of the straight to D+ Pixar films have non-caucasions as the.leads.

 

[Jake Lipson]

In addition to the other examples I mentioned above, Coco also had a non-white lead, actually played by a non-white voice actor, and did very well theatrically.

There are obviously other reasons why Disney chose to take the recent Pixar films to Disney+, but I don't think that the race of the protagonists has anything to do with it.

 

[Edwin-S]

In addition to the other examples I mentioned above, Coco also had a non-white lead, actually played by a non-white voice actor, and did very well theatrically.

There are obviously other reasons why Disney chose to take the recent Pixar films to Disney+, but I don't think that the race of the protagonists has anything to do with it.

You may think that COCO did well at the box office. That doesn't mean that Disney Brass shared your sentiment on its box office performance.

 

[Jake Lipson]

That doesn't mean that Disney Brass shared your sentiment on its box office performance.

Come on, really? The numbers demonstrate that Coco was a financial success. It cost $175 million to make and grossed $797.6 million worldwide. That is a hit by pretty much any metric.

Coco (2017) - Financial Information

Financial analysis of Coco (2017) including budget, domestic and international box office gross, DVD and Blu-ray sales reports, total earnings and profitability.

www.the-numbers.com