Hoppers

[PatchofBlue]

I'm still kinda missing why this girl cares so much about the animal world in the first place, but that's also something that might just be hard to articulate in a movie trailer. I don't need an explanation now, I suppose, but I'll need it eventually.

I'm also wondering if this movie's message will actually end up being protective of the status quo after all--"Silly girl you should have known better than to try to sticking up for the voiceless member of society. Just let the real estate developers do their thing." Is THAT the change they had to make after they got notes to make their movie less woke?

This movie's still on my radar, but I definitely have questions.

[Farerb]

Not for me.

[Disney's Divinity]

Surprised so few comments. This must be going over with a fizzle.

The meeting of the animal "leaders" looked just like the meeting of the alien leaders in Elio. They seem to be spinning their wheels a bit here.

[UmbrellaFish]

Count me as another person wondering, what’s going on here?

I dunno. I get shades of Avatar meets Over the Hedge.

We’ll see…

[Sotiris]

Director Daniel Chang Confirms Pixar Fans Have Already Spotted "Major Easter Egg" in New "Hoppers" Trailer
https://www.laughingplace.com/disney-en ... aster-egg/

A Certain Lizard and Other Fun Characters Featured on "Hoppers" Novelty Items Going on Sale at Various Theater Chains
https://www.laughingplace.com/disney-en ... novelties/

Disney Pixar’s "Hoppers" Leaps Into the El Capitan Theatre With Early Access Screening
https://www.laughingplace.com/disney-en ... creenings/

Pixar’s Hoppers New Exhibit Debuts at Pixar Place Hotel
https://www.laughingplace.com/disney-pa ... ace-hotel/

Inside Pixar’s Hoppers: Daniel Chong and Nicole Grindle Bring a Wild New Comedy to Life
https://www.laughingplace.com/disney-en ... interview/

Party Animal: Pixar's "Hoppers" Tom Lizard Crashes a San Francisco DJ Set
https://www.laughingplace.com/disney-en ... f-hoppers/

Tom Lizard from Pixar's "Hoppers" Makes Character Debut at ESPN's "First Take" in San Francisco
https://www.laughingplace.com/disney-en ... ter-debut/

Hop in Early: D23 Announces Exclusive Gold Member Advance Screenings of "Hoppers"
https://www.laughingplace.com/disney-en ... s-hoppers/

How Pixar Built the Plush, Stylized World of Hoppers
https://www.laughingplace.com/disney-en ... -pipeline/

Discover the World of "Hoppers" with a New Special Look Streaming on Disney+ and Hulu
https://www.laughingplace.com/disney-en ... sney-plus/

Life's Better in Hoppers: Grammy-Winning Artist SZA Provides End Credits Song for Pixar's "Hoppers"
https://www.laughingplace.com/disney-en ... -sza-song/

Hop Over to Disney's Hollywood Studios for a Preview of "Hoppers" at Walt Disney Presents
https://www.laughingplace.com/disney-pa ... d-studios/

Pixar's "Hoppers" Hops Over to AMC Theatres at Disney Springs
https://www.laughingplace.com/disney-pa ... y-springs/

Yogurtland to Introduce New "Hoppers" Inspired Flavor
https://www.laughingplace.com/disney-en ... d-hoppers/

Stars, Creatives, and Critters Arrive for the World Premiere of Pixar's "Hoppers"
https://www.laughingplace.com/disney-en ... -premiere/

The Real Beaver Science Behind Pixar’s "Hoppers"
https://www.laughingplace.com/disney-en ... explained/

New Disney and Pixar “Hoppers” Merchandise Collection Coming This Spring
https://www.laughingplace.com/disney-en ... rel-books/

Hop Into Action: Disney and Jane Goodall’s Roots & Shoots Celebrate Pixar’s “Hoppers” with New Challenge
https://www.laughingplace.com/disney-en ... challenge/

"Hoppers" Collection Brings a Playful Energy to Disney Store
https://www.laughingplace.com/disney-me ... ney-store/

Pixar's "Hoppers" Cast and Creators Appear at Special UK Family Screening Event
https://www.laughingplace.com/disney-en ... ng-photos/

Tom Lizard Teased in Fortnite Ahead of "Hoppers" Theatrical Release
https://www.laughingplace.com/disney-en ... om-lizard/

Disneyland Fun: Park Hopping with "Hoppers" Stars Piper Curda and Bobby Moynihan
https://www.laughingplace.com/disney-pa ... isneyland/

Pixar’s ‘Hoppers’ Tickets Now on Sale; Fandango Launches Pin Bundle
https://www.animationmagazine.net/2026/ ... in-bundle/

Leave It to Beavers: ‘Hoppers’ Director Daniel Chong & Team Discuss the Pixar Film’s Natural Evolution
https://www.animationmagazine.net/2026/ ... evolution/

Interview: What Makes Pixar’s “Hoppers” Ambitious
https://animationscoop.com/interview-wh ... ambitious/

‘Hoppers’ Director Daniel Chong On Translating Cartoon Logic Into Pixar’s CG Pipeline
https://www.cartoonbrew.com/feature-fil ... 59246.html

Hoppers: 5 Things We Learned, Straight From Our Pixar Visit
https://www.slashfilm.com/2086752/hoppe ... r-details/

How Pixar's Hoppers Went "Rogue" For Its Plucky Heroine
https://screenrant.com/hoppers-pixar-mo ... erent-why/

How ‘Hoppers’ Makes Big Changes to Pixar’s Traditional Animation Style
https://discussingfilm.net/2026/02/10/h ... animation/

Pixar's Bonkers New 97% RT Sci-Fi Movie Gets Thrilling New Look
https://collider.com/hoppers-new-image- ... ted-movie/

Hoppers: Pixar Action Comedy Puts Beavers In A ‘Perilous Mission: Impossible Spy Thriller Situation’
https://www.empireonline.com/movies/new ... exclusive/

Hoppers director Daniel Chong says his "chaotic, unhinged" Pixar movie took inspiration from Avatar and Studio Ghibli
https://www.gamesradar.com/entertainmen ... io-ghibli/

Ahead of Toy Story 5, Hoppers director says Pixar knows "originals have to exist" and "you can't keep making sequels"
https://www.gamesradar.com/entertainmen ... g-sequels/

The story behind Tom the Lizard from Pixar's Hoppers, the internet's favorite crash-out meme
https://ew.com/tom-lizard-hoppers-meme- ... y-11917419

Why Damon Lindelof Has a Special Thanks on Pixar’s Latest ‘Hoppers’
https://www.thewrap.com/creative-conten ... -lindelof/

Disney Pixar Film ‘Hoppers’ To Preview At New York Children’s Film Festival
https://deadline.com/2026/01/disney-pix ... 236703288/

Meet the Characters in Disney and Pixar’s Hoppers
https://d23.com/meet-the-characters-in- ... s-hoppers/

[Sotiris]

Hoppers | Special Look | In Theaters March 6
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQITqtfIMjY

[blackcauldron85]

I'm surprised that the "Special Look" recycled most of its footage from the trailer but it still looks like a really fun movie!

[PatchofBlue]

It's bizarre that we are two months away and the marketing is still firmly in the cocoon. Good golly, they won't even be allowed to ask us to feel sorry for them when this flops.

[Kyle]

This really doesn't look good. I wouldn't be shocked if they have little confidence in it.

[Sotiris]

Japanese poster and trailer.

[DisneyFan09]

What a beautiful poster. But since it`s Japanese, it was expected to be superior than the domestic one.

[Sotiris]

TV spots.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbhOZig4Wqw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99MXIOGFT5A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ac6THD6h2yk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfxHGluyOno
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xh9ThqEBWAw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIKsi-Ud3w8

Clips.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eP5jhrxTRsg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocDJ8MgtE74

Featurettes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33NYTMlhVzU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLhD4Dxjw6w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9GXbsRKhg4

Music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Hnx-BOmdyo

[PatchofBlue]

Kinda grating that the "clip" just wound up being a passage from the trailer with more of the blanks filled in.


Hoppers: 5 Things We Learned, Straight From Our Pixar Visit
https://www.slashfilm.com/2086752/hoppe ... r-details/

There were some interesting things here, but I'll flag this little explanation about the visual style.

Some of the most beautiful depictions of nature have come from hand-drawn, 2D animation, but replicating that same feeling in CG is incredibly difficult. "If you take a picture outside, it's quite busy — there's a lot of information, a lot of visual noise," director Daniel Chong said. "How do you calm down nature and depict it in a way that looks beautiful and recognizable but isn't distracting?" According to visual effects supervisor Beth Albright, the challenge was to depict cohesion between the environments and the characters, while still staying true to the film's absurdist comedy/spy thriller/science-fiction tone.

To find the balance, the lighting and effects artists developed a new, custom paintbrush workflow tool that allowed them to put brushstrokes on their models and simplify the backgrounds without losing the rich texture of the environments. For roughly three weeks, every department took a timeout sprint to create new visuals that they'd always wanted to try. "From there," Albright continued, "we were able to create a brand new pipeline that could take each individual leaf, turn it into a point, and then replace it with a painted brushstroke. [...] We were able to simplify some of the visual detail without blurring it out or putting a bunch of atmosphere and mist in front of it, which meant we could maintain silhouettes on our characters that were soft and tactile, but clear and expressive."

This allowed a softening of natural backgrounds that allowed characters to pop, but without the realistic feeling of nature being lost. This approach extended to other complicated factors like beaver habitats, depictions of the elements, and figuring out how to have nighttime scenes still resemble a comedy and never cross over into the realm of frightful.

My general read of this film is that it has a very motivated, very specific vision going for it, but Pixar is just having trouble communicating that in the marketing, which poses a valid problem.

[Disney's Divinity]

I hate to say it since I don't want to cast aspersions on something Shi's involved with, but I admit every time I see anything promoting the film, I can't fight the thought that this just looks so stupid...

But hey, stupid movies end up really popular sometimes. I'd laugh if this is the one that launches PIXAR's original material back upwards.

[PatchofBlue]

Well, whatdoya' know?

Pixar’s New Sci-Fi Movie Gets Huge Praise in First Reactions
https://comicbook.com/movies/news/pixar ... ied-about/

Mind you, early reactions aren't always good predictors of full reviews. There's no indication that this is an accurate mirror of how critics will receive it, which is itself no indication that the critical dialogue will be a fair mirror of the film's merit anyways.

Either way, I'm not counting on this being enough to steer the movie out of flop territory. It might just go down as another Pixar martyr.

Or who knows? This could be the turnaround for Pixar's non-franchise films.

[Sotiris]

After Elio, there's nowhere to go but up. For one, the film's subject matter is much more commercial than that of Pixar's recent originals. For another, cute animals are always popular and coupled with the zany, hyperactive humor showcased in the trailers, the film will have an easier time appealing to the TikTok generation.

[DisneyFan09]

Clip.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgXKtAlqhPw

It was essentially a good scene. But the zappy and zingy comedy and angles was distracting and made the scene less serious as a whole.

[Kyle]

After Elio, there's nowhere to go but up. For one, the film's subject matter is much more commercial than that of Pixar's recent originals. For another, cute animals are always popular and coupled with the zany, hyperactive humor showcased in the trailers, the film will have an easier time appealing to the TikTok generation.

Mass appeal should not always been the goal. What happened to making a movie about something that doesn't instantly translate to toys or tiktok fodder, like UP? That's often where the real gems are. Otherwise you end up with mainstream slop. That's what hoppers feels like to me so far.

[Jules]

Mass appeal should not always been the goal. What happened to making a movie about something that doesn't instantly translate to toys or tiktok fodder, like UP? That's often where the real gems are. Otherwise you end up with mainstream slop. That's what hoppers feels like to me so far.

I generally agree to this, but one must keep in mind that Pixar is hardly in a position to pitch and release innovative (i.e. less commercial) movies right now. Same goes for WDAS really. Both studios need to find their footing with crowd-pleasing originals. Then, if somebody in the studios' management has enough balls, they can take on something different.

Let's not forget that Pixar's first film, while very different from Disney's animated films, is at its core still a very conventional story (in my opinion). It was only after Pixar built an audience, that they could stretch their wings with risqué themes in The Incredibles, old main characters in Up, or a mostly dialogue-free robot romance in Wall-E.

Remember what WDAS released the same year as Wall-E?

BOLT

A perfectly fine film on its own merits, but clearly never conceived as some sort of magnum opus. It was a transitional film by a recovering studio.

[BloomHunter]

After Elio, there's nowhere to go but up. For one, the film's subject matter is much more commercial than that of Pixar's recent originals. For another, cute animals are always popular and coupled with the zany, hyperactive humor showcased in the trailers, the film will have an easier time appealing to the TikTok generation.

Mass appeal should not always been the goal. What happened to making a movie about something that doesn't instantly translate to toys or tiktok fodder, like UP? That's often where the real gems are. Otherwise you end up with mainstream slop. That's what hoppers feels like to me so far.

It really shouldn't. I'm actually worried if Gatto will be falling victim to this double screening trend. Z2 was the most obvious entry for me so far from this trend, that I barely could take away anything memorable from it; due to it over explaining the plot every corner with an unfunny joke. Hoppers hasn't given me much reason to be out of my way to rush and see it.