Disney•Pixar has announced Onward, a new animated adventure starring Star-Lord and Peter Parker Chris Pratt and Tom Holland as elf brothers searching for lost magic in a “suburban fantasy” world. Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Octavia Spencer also star. While Toy Story 4 comes out in June of 2019, ahead of Onward’s 2020 release, this is Pixar Animation’s next original/non-sequel story since 2017’s Coco.
Aside from the official tweet from Disney, the company also had notorious spoiler-leaker Holland announce the project on his Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BrS4DwsnBXK/
The logline:
Set in a suburban fantasy world, Disney•Pixar’s Onward introduces two teenage elf brothers who embark on an extraordinary quest to discover if there is still a little magic left out there.
“At Pixar we try to create stories that come from some kind of personal truth,” director Dan Scanlon (Monsters University) said in the official announcement. “This film was inspired by my own relationship with my brother.” More context comes from io9’s report at last year’s D23 expo, at which Onward was first announced; because Scanlon’s father died when he was very young, he and his brother had few memories of him, until the day they discovered an audio tape with his voice on it. About the female characters we know little, aside from Scanlon describing Dreyfus’ as having “a warm and loving side,” and “the depth as well as humor” that Spencer brings to her character.
The D23 report also clarifies what a “suburban fantasy world” entails—i.e., a world in which magic had once existed but no longer does. Instead of humans, this world is populated by elves, trolls, and sprites, who live in suburban mushroom houses and fight off unicorn infestations.
Onward comes to theaters March 6, 2020.
