Monsters U Bits: Nathan Fillion, Clips and Concept Art

Here's a shocker: Once again, Disney and Pixar are besieging us with endless Monsters University bric-à-bra. Be warned when watching and reading things here; if you don't want to indulge in any spoilers, then run while you still can. Okay? Then let's proceed.

Japanese Monsters University Trailer Shows Off Lots of New Footage - And a Lot of the Plot

Japanese trailers are a curious thing. On the one hand, they're always really good, often very emotional, and lend a lot of charm and excitement to the promotion of whatever film they're made for (see last year's awesome Brave one for an example). On the other hand, however, they're always extremely spoiler-heavy, showcasing a sizeable portion of a film's major plot-points. With that in mind, check out this new spoiler heavy Japanese trailer for Pixar's Monsters University!

Monsters University Bits: New Clip, Characters and Casting

Pixar-hype season is gearing up again, and this one's going to be a doozie. Just yesterday Pixar unveiled the second trailer for their next release, Monsters University, and today, we get lots more cool stuff from the prequel!

Cool Logo For Pixar's The Good Dinosaur

Briefly: Pixar News received an anonymous tip that the above logo is being used for Up co-director Bob Peterson's solo-directorial debut, The Good Dinosaur. Pixar Post confirms that the logo is legit - or at least was being used in November of last year. It's a nifty little logo that goes well with the quirky story The Good Dinosaur has - I can't wait to hear more from this film when Monsters University's almost out later this summer.

The Good Dinosaur is co-directed by Peter Sohn (Partly Cloudy) and produced by John Walker (The Incredibles), it's released on 30th May, 2014 in the US and 18th July, 2014 in the UK.

Disney Infinity Launch Details

The blogosphere has been buzzing, over the last few weeks, with details and speculation about an exciting new Disney game, one that would allow the player to play as characters from the many facets of Disney - today we got our first look at that game, Disney Infinity.

Similar in idea to the Activision published Skylanders games, in which the player takes one of many real, physical toys and places it on a sensor (which Disney are calling "Infinity Base"), which then makes the character appear, playable, on screen; it's a nifty idea. They're also introducing "power discs", which enable special powers for the character when stacked underneath them on the Infinity Base. What better application of said idea than to allow Disney fans to play as all of their favourite characters: team up Captain Jack, Sulley and Mr. Incredible to fight an Omnidroid? No problem! Stick Buzz Lightyear's jetpack on Mike? Yeah, to Disney Infinity and beyond!



Check out our first look at some gameplay from Disney Infinity, above. The starter pack consists of characters from The Incredibles, Monsters University and Pirates of the Caribbean, with more available-separately packs to be revealed later. Pixar Post has the press release and some cool images from the game; Family Gamer TV has a hands-on with some of the game's physical elements.

Disney Infinity's due for a June release on Wii, WiiU, PS3, Xbox 360, 3DS, PC and mobile platforms. Check out the website here.

Damn You, Pixar: More Tantalising Newt Concept Art

*sigh* Pixar, will you ever let us move on?

newt was by far my most anticipated Pixar film, we didn't know much about it, only a premise and some gorgeous concpet art (here and here -- you can view it all here), but I was hooked; I don't remember ever connecting quite so much to quite so little. So, I was rather upset when the film was cancelled - due in part to plot similarities to Blue Sky Studios' Rio. Pixar, though, won't let us mourn in piece, and insist on showering us with yet more beautiful concept art and references to the film, and today we get more still, via former Pixarian Katy Wu, who shared some of the work she did on the film on her personal blog.

John Lasseter Talks About Pixar's Upcoming Slate; Details on Día de los Muertos Film

Disney and Pixar Animation Chief Creative Officer, John Lasseter, recently sat down for an interview with Monsieur Hollywood, a French movie site, in which he discussed Pixar's upcoming slate of animated films, including shedding some light on Lee Unkrich's untitled film about the Día de los Muertos!

In the first part of the interview, John discusses Brave, how many firsts it represents for Pixar and what it means to him personally. However, the second part is arguably more interesting. In the second part (embedded above), the Toy Story director discusses (as well as the technical challenges of Brave and his favourite Disney characters) what we'll see from Pixar in the next 5 to 10 years. He doesn't offer up much, saying Monsters University (new images here) is "really funny", and merely mentions Bob Peterson's The Good Dinosaur; he speaks very enthusiastically about Pete Docter's "amazing story" for his Untitled Mind Film, however, the most interesting nugget of information was concerning Lee Unkrich's next film.

The Toy Story 3 director is working on a film about the Mexican holiday of the Day of the Dead, and speculation has been rife over what the story of the film would revolve around; whether it would be a more adult Pixar film. Lasseter shed a little bit of light on the matter saying it's a "fantastic story of family". So, we now know that, what will be, Pixar's 17th feature film will be family-centric - a normal family juxtaposed into fantastic situations perhaps, in the mould of The Incredibles or Brave maybe.

It'll be a while before we hear more from this project though, given that it doesn't even have an announced title or release date yet - expect it in 2015/16.

Need a Pixar fix in the meantime? Then check out our review of Brave, which finally arrives here in the UK in 9 days, on the 13th.

Via The Pixar Times and Pixar Post.

Watch: Time Travel Mater

The latest Cars Toon, Time Travel Mater - the redesigned version of the formerly planned Backwards to the Fowards - which aired a few weeks ago on ABC, is now online! Perhaps not as chaotic or fun as the early boards for the story made it seem, it is very funny, very sentimental and focuses a bit more on characters besides Lightning and Mater. Check it out embedded above.

I also really enjoyed the Disney reference towards the start of the short, declaring it a "Pixar Laugh-O-Gram", paying homage to Walt Disney's early days in animation.


No word yet on when or if we can expect another Cars Toon; although we've still got 5 more Toy Story Toons on the way!

Via Pixar Post.

New Brave Featurette: Triple Play

Pixar continue the onslaught of promos for Brave, with yet another featurette today, called "Triple Play". As opposed to yesterday, today's clip is not a parody, rather a brand-new clip showing Merida's mischievous triplet brothers Harris, Hubert and Hamish. Courtesy of Pixar Post, this new clip sees the three young boys reenact the story of how King Fergus won the hand of Queen Elinor.

The triplets are absolutely hilarious and its very easy to see why many people are citing them as the comic highlight of the film!

Brave is released in the US on 22nd June and in the UK on 13th August.

Temple Run: Brave Coming Soon!

The pairing up of popular mobile game franchises with the latest animated releases continues. Last year we got Fruit Ninja: Puss in Boots, Angry Birds Rio and Doodle Jump Hop, as well as an original game for Pixar's Cars 2. Today we got news that Pixar are jumping on the bandwagon of pairing their latest release with a popular mobile game: the über popular Temple Run.

The very simplistic game makes the user swipe up to jump, swipe down to slide, and swipe left and right to turn, to avoid obstacles and sharp falls and survive for as long as possible. Temple Run: Brave looks (from the first look above) to expand on that gameplay, with the ability to shoot objects at the side for bonus points. The player controls Merida, the antagonist of Pixar's latest film, and must try and evade the demon bear, Mor'du, for as long as possible.

This looks like a great partnership for both parties, and seems set to be a great app!

Temple Run: Brave will be available on 14th June for iOS and Android devices.

Via Pixar Post and Pixar Tweets.

New Brave Clip Introduces us to The Lords

The latest of a long series of Brave clips and TV spots (above) is titled "A Royal Bash" and gives us our most extended looks at the Lords to date. We've seen an awful lot of Brave's main character Merida and her family, so it's nice to get a look at three of the other characters that promise to be a great source of comedy in the film.

The three Lords: Macintosh, MacGuffin and Dingwall are voiced by Craig Ferguson, Kevin McKidd and Robbie Coltrane respectively and are absolutely brilliant in this clip! Look for the Lords to be a highlight of Brave.

Via Pixar Post.