With “Hoppers,” Pixar looks for a boost to its original animated films

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In 2020, “We Bare Bears” creator Daniel Chong came to Pixar leaders with an idea.

He’d watched nature documentaries filmed using robotic animals with cameras for eyes. But he wondered: what if the technology became so realistic you couldn’t distinguish it from the real thing? And what if someone could actually go undercover, disguised as one of those robotic animals?

Walt Disney and Pixar’s new animated movie, “Hoppers,” opens this week, and it all started with a single idea. This film represents Pixar’s newest effort to create a successful, original story – something they’ve found challenging since the start of the pandemic.

It’s challenging to create something new while living up to Pixar’s reputation, explained Chong, the director of ‘Hoppers’ and one of the film’s writers.

He explained that while the movie had a lot riding on it, his main focus was making it genuinely funny and creating characters that audiences would love. He believes that strong, emotionally resonant characters are the most important part of any Pixar film.

Pixar and other animation studios have recently found big success with sequels – for example, “Inside Out 2” earned $1.7 billion worldwide in 2024. However, Pixar, based in Emeryville, is famous for its original films like “Toy Story,” “Monsters, Inc.,” and “The Incredibles.” Creating new, original stories remains essential for the studio’s continued success.

Pixar knows audiences love revisiting characters like Woody and Buzz from “Toy Story,” but according to Chief Creative Officer Pete Docter, they can’t make endless sequels. Plus, not every movie works well with follow-up stories, as they’ve discovered while considering ideas for a sequel to “Monsters, Inc.”

We’ve worked hard on that project for a long time, and we’ll have to see what happens next. But it’s been very challenging. It seems the film is limited in what it can do and doesn’t easily allow for new stories without revisiting old ideas, which I think would be unsatisfying for audiences.

Experts predict “Hoppers” will earn between $25 million and $40 million during its opening weekend, despite costing $150 million to make. Early reviews have been very positive, with 96% of critics recommending the film on Rotten Tomatoes.

According to Docter, Pixar needs to keep creating original stories to avoid repeating itself. He hopes the success of ‘Hoppers’ will demonstrate that audiences are still eager for fresh, surprising movies, rather than just sequels or stories based on existing characters and worlds.

Original animated movies have been struggling lately, as have new movies in general. While people say they want fresh stories, audiences are still mostly choosing to watch sequels and reboots as the movie theater business recovers from the pandemic.

Pixar’s last original movie, “Elio,” released in 2025, didn’t perform well in theaters. This was partly because it was a difficult time for new animated films, and it faced stiff competition from other family movies, including live-action remakes of “How to Train Your Dragon” and “Lilo & Stitch.”

The pandemic significantly impacted Pixar’s recent films. When COVID-19 forced lockdowns, Pixar released original movies like “Soul,” “Luca,” and “Turning Red” directly on Disney+ to provide entertainment for families at home. However, this also led viewers to expect new Pixar films to be available for home viewing. As theaters reopened, families were slower to return, likely due to ongoing health and safety concerns.

Heather Holian, an art history professor at UNC Greensboro, explained that it took effort to change people’s expectations. ‘It was difficult to shift how audiences thought about Pixar movies and convince them to return to seeing them in theaters,’ she said.

Pixar movies succeed by feeling both relatable and unexpected, a challenging balance to achieve, according to Docter. The making of “Hoppers” relied heavily on close collaboration with Pixar’s story artists from the beginning. Chong would share initial ideas, and the artists would build on them, creating dialogue and details that fleshed out his concepts. This approach differs from Pixar’s usual method, where fully written scripts are provided to the artists for visual development.

Before creating the Cartoon Network series “We Bare Bears,” Chong worked as a story artist at Pixar, and he later returned to Pixar in 2019.

The new animated movie “Hoppers” could benefit from the success of “Goat,” a film produced by Stephen Curry. “Goat” tells an original story about a small athlete trying to succeed in a professional animal sports league. So far, “Goat” has earned almost $75 million in the U.S. and Canada, and over $131 million worldwide.

These two films kick off what looks to be a fantastic year for animation. After “Hoppers,” audiences can look forward to “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” in April, then Pixar’s “Toy Story 5” in June and “Minions & Monsters” from Universal and Illumination in July. Warner Bros. is planning to release “The Cat in the Hat” later in the fall.

According to Shawn Robbins, who tracks movie data for Fandango and runs Box Office Theory, successful years for movie theaters usually rely on popular films that families enjoy.

Many people are hopeful about this year’s box office performance, largely due to the strong lineup of animated movies. When families find films they want to see, they significantly boost ticket sales.

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2026-03-04 14:33