More The Merrier: Second Teaser/Short for 'Coco' Arrives

Well how about that? Another look at Pixar's upcoming original story Coco has been released!

A sort-of teaser/short film, it's a fun watch. There's lots of classic cartoony slapstick here, though I wonder if the movie itself will have that kind of humor. Maybe, maybe not.


Now this was actually shown in other countries. Someone leaked it onto YouTube (it was a recording in a movie theater, and it was in Spanish) a couple weeks back when the American teaser was released, so it's cool to see that Disney's marketing and Pixar have released it here.

Just a month in, and this campaign is pretty strong so far. Definitely a real 180 from how they marketed The Good Dinosaur, which like Coco, was a fall release in 2015 that came off the heels of a summer Pixar event - Inside Out. Coco is the fall Pixar movie this year, Cars 3 is the summer release. Looks like the same mistakes won't be made again.

Now, will they attach this to something in theaters? The next family-friendly Disney release is the Disneynature film Born in China, it could show up before that, but there's already a great teaser out so maybe not. Or maybe they'll combine the two, for Cars 3's first extended look combined the teaser and new footage. (And that "extended look" is rolling in theaters, I catch it frequently at the theater I work at.)

Who knows what they'll do.

UPDATE: I'm hearing it was shown before Beauty and the Beast. I didn't get to catch the preview reels for that at work.

What did you think of the short?

A New World: Teaser for 'Coco' Surfaces

It is finally here! The teaser for Pixar's new original tale, the Day of the Dead story Coco!


What a teaser this was!

Not only does it successfully establish the concept *and* some of the storyline itself, it also has a great atmosphere, a very nice retro vibe (VHS and LPs!), and lots of little subtleties. Pixar's take on the Land of the Dead is a country mile from The Book of Life's depiction of it. While Book of Life's was a painterly, visually amazing city... This is like a forest of town neighborhoods and highways, they almost look like individual trees with buildings wrapped around them. It's big, complicated, and stunning.

The music also sounds great, and also boosts the atmosphere. I think the teaser really shows how songs will be worked into the picture, and how the film won't be a more traditional break-out-into-song musical, as that has been emphasized long before this teaser was put together. I'm quite fine with this direction, though one day it would be cool to see Pixar take their crack at the classic "singing" musical.

The teaser is definitely a nice change of pace from jokes-jokes-jokes.

In fact, Pixar's teasers have been rather different as of late. Pixar actually sort of pioneered the gag-based animated movie teaser.

For their second feature, 1998's A Bug's Life, they made a teaser composed of animation made just for it that wouldn't be used in the film itself. Ever since that film came out, Pixar has done this for almost every subsequent picture of theirs. Now, for a long while, these were also very humorous teasers. WALL-E's teaser broke the mold a bit and Up's was a little cryptic, but it was back to the funny teaser after that. Then the teaser for Brave showed up. Not a joke in sight in that one, it was rather serious and it ended on an intense moment, not a gag.

Now... The current trend we're seeing began with, oddly enough, The Good Dinosaur. That film's teaser showed the film's opening minute with the asteroid missing Earth, and then a montage of clips from the actual movie - not special animation made just for the teaser - set to some pretty epic music, no dialogue at all. Finding Dory's teaser was an alternate version of a scene from the movie, this very version was going to be in the movie before the filmmakers decided that it wasn't up to snuff. (You can see this on the Blu-ray's selection of deleted scenes.)

Cars 3, their next feature, had a teaser that had maybe one line of dialogue... It was just shots of a race, and then Lightning McQueen crashing and flipping over in slow-motion. The race is also in the movie itself, though it was re-lit for the teaser. McQueen's climactic crash is actually going to take place at nighttime.

Now we've got this. This has got to be footage from the movie itself, all of it. If it isn't, I'll be surprised. There's very little humor in here, and it's all about story, Miguel's character, the atmosphere, and the premise itself. This is one of Pixar's best teasers yet...

What say you?

Poster Rush: 'Cars 3' Teaser Posters Unveiled

Unusually arriving a little after the release of the teaser, the Cars 3 posters are here!

Both are, for the most part, not unusual for Pixar teaser posters. Minimal, not needing much, just a few images and such to get the point across. The American one and the international one are both radically different...

Our poster aligns with the film's much talked about teaser. McQueen's big wreck...

The international one is the beach scene that we saw in the great concept art earlier in the year.

Both are quite nice, the first is rather striking for some. For many who aren't all that fond of the Cars series, the rather gritty mood of the teaser and the US poster could be off-putting, almost laughable in a way. Others who are accustomed to Cars' lighter side have been surprised as well.

For me, I see the wreck itself as being no different from what Doc Hudson or The King went through. I'm seeing all this talk, all this "McQueen died!" talk, and I can only scratch my head. The Cars series may be lightweight compared to some other Pixar heavies out there, but for me the series didn't hold back on some rough stuff. Races can be dangerous, and death is a thing in the world of cars. Several autos are blown up or killed in Cars 2, Cars climaxes with the King getting in a very bad crash. The first Cars nearly had a sequence where McQueen ends up in a graveyard of broken cars after getting separated from Mack, and of course Stanley has been long dead.

As for the wreck, McQueen is essentially following in the tire tracks of Doc Hudson, and having him wreck makes sense for this kind of a story. We were told back in June that Cars 3 will have a lot of focus on the deceased Hudson Hornet. I can understand how the tone itself has shocked some folk, but you see... Disney marketing did their job! They got people talking! "A gritty Cars movie? What the heck?!" It's still buzz. I have a feeling the first full trailer for this thing will be the typical "gags-story-gags-story" ping-ponging.

The international poster eschews the grit, and focuses on vibrant colors and pretty scenery. No wreckage, no greyed out racetracks, just a pretty, sunny beach and a really cool shot of McQueen kicking up water. It's very nice to look at, and in a way it's not much different from some other Cars-related promo materials. One of the earlier posters for the first Cars was very minimal as well, it was Lightning covered in a tarp, and you could only see some of his smile.

Anyways, both are very cool. The US one doesn't show the film's proper logo, Disney has been doing this with posters and teasers these days. The teaser for Pirates of the Caribbean: Insert Super-Long Subtitle Here ends with the Pirates skull, but no logo. The poster itself doesn't have the logo, either. Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2? That teaser just ends with "Coming Soon", but the poster shows the logo. I wonder if Spider-Man: Homecoming and Thor: Ragnarok's marketing will be similar.

What say you?

Better Blue: Teaser for 'Smurfs: The Lost Village' Debuts

Well, we now have a real look at Sony Animation's upcoming Smurfs: The Lost Village...

Before we start, I didn't bother with the US trailer, which apparently uses an unfitting song during the final half... Watch the international one instead:


Well, it's nothing special, and I could do without some of the gags here, but... Visually it looks pretty darn good, just like the teaser poster from yesterday and the other images. I've said it before, but I really like the look that Sony Animation is going for with this feature. Not only does it eschew the hyper-real CG of the live-action hybrids, it aligns more with The Peanuts Movie and the scrapped Genndy Tartakovsky iteration of their still-in-the-works Popeye film. I like the environment it's set in, and the animation has that painterly, more 2D-esque quality to it.

A teaser's a teaser so I won't say too much about the forced humor and such. I'll wait for the official trailer before I can say anything, but how do I feel about it right now? The way I've felt since the day they announced the project. I hope it's what Sony and director Kelly Asbury are making it out to be: A fun adventure that takes cues from the original comics by Peyo, and not the Hanna-Barbera TV show adaptation.

What do you think of the teaser? Are you looking forward to this film? Sound off below!