Disney/Pixar Soul (2020)

[Koby]

Disney announced in June 2019 that its Pixar film for next summer is Soul. The studio already had June 19 RSVP’ed on the 2020 calendar for an untitled Pixar movie, and this is it.

 

Soul will be the second original Pixar film next year after Onward, which bows March 6.

The tagline for Soul: Ever wonder where your passion, your dreams and your interests come from? What is it that makes you … you?” Directed by two-time Oscar winner Pete Docter (Up, Inside Out), the film takes place between New York City and the cosmic realms. Dana Murray, an Oscar nominee for her animated short film Lou, is producing.

Before Disney’s D23 expo, we had only a ghost of a notion of just what was going on with their new animated feature, Soul. The brand new, original feature arriving in theaters on June 19, 2020 was described as tackling “life’s most important questions” on a journey that travels from New York City to the “cosmic realms.” Things have solidified a bit since then.

We now know that the movie will follow Joe Gardner, a middle school band teacher and jazz aficionado who gets a big break to play at a high-class jazz club. The problem is, Joe apparently dies before he can get there and finds himself newly arrived in the “You Seminar.” And while that may sound decidedly dark, the core of the story is that Joe’s soul will get an opportunity to commune with a multitude of other souls that are awaiting a chance at consciousness. Thankfully, we have some concept art (and some casting details) to help wrap our heads around that.

Joe will be played by Jamie Foxx (Ray) while Tina Fey (30 Rock) voices a spritely soul-in-training named 22 who has an unexpected encounter with Joe when he accidentally finds his way to the “You Seminar.” Together, the two are going to find a way to get Joe back to Earth, making him think again about what it truly means to have soul.

But that’s not all! Ahmir Questlove Thompson (Detroit), Phylicia Rashad (The Cosby Show), and Daveed Diggs (Blindspotting) also star as a drummer, Joe’s mother, and Joe’s neighbor, respectively. And the musical hits keep on coming because Trent Reznor (The Social Network) and Atticus Ross (The Social Network) are composing the score while Jon Batiste (Red Hook Summer) is writing new music for the movie. Two-time Oscar-winner Pete Docter (Up, Inside Out) directs with co-director/writer Kemp Powers (Star Trek: Discovery), writer Mike Jones, and Oscar-nominee Dana Murray (Lou) producing. This is really shaping up to be something special.

[Stuff123]

I only saw the teaser for this (which is about a minute and a half), but I'm sold on it.

 

It seems like it's going to be a musical and I hope the include not just Jazz, but a multitude of music genres. For example, each of the souls he communes with will be feature a different music genre that Joe participates in resulting in a jazz fusion musical number.

[Koby]

In case anyone hasn't already seen it:

 

 

1 hour ago, Stuff123 said:

It seems like it's going to be a musical and I hope the include not just Jazz, but a multitude of music genres.

I hope it does as well.

[GlassReality45]

This seems really interesting. I always like Disney's animated features and I'm excited to see how this one turns out, it seems like a nicely original concept.