DVDizzy Forum

“Gatto”, expected in summer 2027, comes from the filmmaking team behind “Luca,” – director Enrico Casarosa and producer Andrea Warren. Casarosa’s directorial debut feature now turned fan-favorite due to his loveable characters and lush Italian settings, “Luca” was the first Pixar film to be released exclusively on Disney+, as Hollywood execs struggled to adapt to the pandemic’s shifting tides.

Since then, DisneyPixar has —to all animation fans’ greatest pleasure— pivoted back to a worldwide theatrical release strategy, paired with exclusive premieres. Annecy crowds may well be the very first audience to discover “Gatto” in June 2027.

This new Pixar film returns to Italy, Casarosa’s birth country, this time to Venice, where, after years of maneuvering the sea-side, extraordinary city, a black cat named Nero begins to question whether he’s lived the right lives.

A partial music-lover —at least, his tail is— and non-swimming feline who is indebted to a local feline mob boss, Nero finds himself in a quandary and is forced to forge a truly unexpected friendship with Maya, a street artist that adopts him against his will.

Together, those two individuals form an odd couple, but this relation might finally lead Nero to find his purpose…. unless the mysterious and dark side of Venice gets the better of him first.

The Annecy crowd cheered the announcement and went wild as Docter unveiled animation tests of a distinct, unique hand-painted look, something Pixar has never shown before. The film appears to be rich in colors from Venetian settings, and blends 2D hand paint textures with cutting-edge CG animation.

The film appears to be rich in colors from Venetian settings, and blends 2D hand paint textures with cutting-edge CG animation.

Docter went on to tease what the movie is about: "Venice, if you've been there, it's like a living painting. There's layer upon layer of history there. It's inspired artists for generations. For most people, Venice is like a dream world, a place they can't wait to visit. For our main character, it is not, because he is a black cat named Nero. For him, Venice is a nightmare. He soon finds himself indebted to a certain cat boss named Rocco. Now, the other aspect that makes Nero's life difficult is that he loves music. When Nero discovers a street musician named Maya, he ends up held captive by more than just the music. He actually is captured by her and becomes a house cat. It's not what he wanted, but Maya is an outsider in Venice too. She and Nero are really the two black cats of the movie, and their relationship is the heart of the film. There's so much more to this movie."

Gatto is a painterly story set in Venice about Nero, a black cat who struggles to survive in a city full of canals and superstition. Nero’s only solace is music. One clip showed his tail acting independently when hearing street musician Maya, pulling him into her world, setting off the story. The pair form the heart of the film.

JTurner wrote: ↑Sat Jun 14, 2025 12:13 pm So Pixar's going a hand drawn route (or style)? Interesting.

Kyle wrote: ↑Sat Jun 14, 2025 12:37 pm

JTurner wrote: ↑Sat Jun 14, 2025 12:13 pm So Pixar's going a hand drawn route (or style)? Interesting.

What makes you think that? This is just 2d concept art like they do for all their movies, its not a still from the movie.
If the "painterly story" is what you're grabbing onto, eh, they also described tangled and bolt as painterly, I wouldn't put too much stock into that line.

JTurner wrote: ↑Sat Jun 14, 2025 12:13 pm So Pixar's going a hand drawn route (or style)? Interesting.

DisneyJedi wrote: ↑Sat Jun 14, 2025 4:23 pm

Kyle wrote: ↑Sat Jun 14, 2025 12:37 pm
What makes you think that? This is just 2d concept art like they do for all their movies, its not a still from the movie.
If the "painterly story" is what you're grabbing onto, eh, they also described tangled and bolt as painterly, I wouldn't put too much stock into that line.

To be fair, before Tangled became a standard CGI movie and… well… Tangled, it was originally going to be animated to look like a moving oil painting, but they changed course on that for some reason.

Q:  You’re exploring new animation techniques with Gatto to kind of emulate that painterly aspect, but are there other sort of technological animation innovations that you’re trying out in other upcoming films?

Pete Docter: Like I feel like I saw in Hoppers a little bit of a different, difference from like the Pixar ‘house style,’ especially in like the fur, for example, of the, the animals. Yeah. I mean, I think the way we’ve always looked at is that the storytelling has to inspire the technology and then the technology in turn inspires the storytelling and the art. So it stems from the idea if the idea itself seems to demand it, we start exploring. In terms of like new technology, I mean, every film it’s, I remember when Monsters Inc came out. People were like, ‘Oh my gosh, the fur is amazing!’ And that was a real visual breakthrough for us. I don’t know that there’s anything that dramatic for the audience. Hopefully Gatto will be, because I think it really looks different and interesting. And yeah, we just continue to explore different facets of that on every film.