Thomas Newman On Board to Score The Good Dinosaur

Acclaimed composer Thomas Newman, who most recently scored Skyfall and Steven Soderbergh's Side Effects, is returning to score his third Pixar film, 2014's The Good Dinosaur. This will be Newman's third film for Pixar (after Finding Nemo and WALL-E).

The composer, who is the cousin of fellow Pixar-composer Randy Newman and of Joey Newman (Adam and Dog), speaking at Le Moyne and Syracuse University a couple of days ago, said that the Pixar film (which is directed by Bob Peterson) would be his next project.

It's great to hear that Newman's returning to Pixar, as all of his work's superlative, particularly his score for WALL-E, which was absolutely out of this world (pun intended). I can't wait to hear what he conjures up next.

The Good Dinosaur opens on 30th May, 2014 in the US and 18th July, 2014 in the UK.

Via Upcoming Pixar.

New Monsters University CG Character Art

Upcoming Pixar has some exclusive CG character art from Pixar's upcoming, highly anticipated, prequel, Monsters University. A few weeks ago Pixar rolled out their viral website for the film, and we can surely expect the second trailer for it with Disney's Wreck-It Ralph this coming Friday - or soon thereafter.

Check out the great CG renders of the characters - including Mike and Sulley, and new characters Don, Squishy, Squishy's Mom, Art and Terry & Terri - via Upcoming Pixar's Flickr page. Monsters U looks set to have just as lively a cast of characters as the original Monsters, Inc. did 11 years ago - and they're sure as hell going to sell a lot of Monsters plush toys!

Monsters University is directed by Dan Scanlon, and produced by Kori Rae, and arrives in cinemas next year, on 21st June (US) and 12th July (UK) - and the original Monsters, Inc. is re-released in 3D on 19th December (US) and 18th January, 2013 (UK)

Toy Story of Terror! TV Special Coming Next Year!

We heard a few months ago that - as well as working on new Toy Story Toons, one of which was just recently released - "two new 22-minute TV specials are in the works for October 2013 and Spring 2014." And now we know what the first of those will be about.

Animation World Network announced that next Halloween, Pixar will release a Toy Story holiday special: Toy Story of Terror! The synopsis AWN provides is:

What starts out as a fun road trip for the Toy Story gang takes an unexpected turn for the worse when the trip detours to a roadside motel. After one of the toys goes missing, the others find themselves caught up in a mysterious sequence of events that must be solved before they all suffer the same fate in this Toy Story of Terror.

Sounds great! After Partysaurus Rex, it's great to see Pixar going a slightly different route with the Toy Story gang going forwards. Bryko from Upcoming Pixar raises a good point too; given Toy Story 3 director Lee Unkrich's famous love of The Shining, and Toy Story of Terror!'s very Shining-esque sounding story, it seems very likely we'll see him involved with the project in some way.

It's only fitting, given that Toy Story started life itself as a holiday TV special (A Tin Toy Christmas), that things are coming full circle with these Toy Story specials. And I, for one, can't wait!

Some Details About a Brave-Based Short Film - And a Catch-Up on the "Umbrella" Short

It's been a tradition since 2001, that when a Pixar film hits home video formats, it will be accompanied by the short-film that preceded it in cinemas, and a new feature-based short exclusive to DVDs, Blu-rays and digital copies of the film. Monsters, Inc. had Mike's New Car, The Incredibles had Jack Jack Attack, WALL-E had BURN-E, and so on. Pixar's last two features, Toy Story 3 and Cars 2 haven't had one on their home video releases, but Brave looks set to return to the tradition.

Check out all the details after the jump break!