It’s been a long journey for “Coco,” Pixar’s Day of the Dead animated film.
When the movie was first announced in 2012, it had no title and no clear focus besides being centered around Mexico’s Día de los Muertos celebrations, which begin on Oct. 31 and end on Nov. 2. But now Pixar and director Lee Unkrich, who worked on “Toy Story 3,” have begun to reveal the cast, plot details and concept art for the film.
There’s still plenty of time before the animated feature premieres in November 2017, but in the meantime here’s what Pixar fans need to know about this film.
In the movie, 12-year-old Miguel dreams of becoming a musician despite his family's generations-old hatred towards music. But once Miguel realizes his connection to his dead idol, Ernesto de la Cruz, he sets out to convince his family to embrace music once more. During his mission, Miguel finds himself navigating the Land of the Dead with the help of a trickster, Hector. It's his journey in that colorful yet dead world that will be the biggest focus of the film.
Benjamin Bratt (as Ernesto de la Cruz) and Gael García Bernal (as Hector) are two of the animated film's leads with newcomer Anthony Gonzalez voicing the movie's main character, Miguel. Actress Renée Victor joins the cast as Miguel’s grandmother.
“It was important to us from day one that we had an all-Latino cast,” director Lee Unkrich told Entertainment Weekly. “It focused us, and we ended up with a fantastic mix of people — some from Mexico and some from Los Angeles.”
Day 3 of Coco music recording in Mexico: Son Jarocho with Grupo Mono Blanco @monogil1 #PixarCoco pic.twitter.com/8yzcJuhfdS
— Lee Unkrich (@leeunkrich) November 10, 2016
The feature film will include both traditional Mexican music and original compositions that will be sung by the cast.
The company eventually dropped the application after more than 15,000 people signed a Presente.org online petition and Chicano cartoonist Lalo Alcaraz depicted “Muerto Mouse: It’s coming to trademark your cultura!” in a viral illustration.
Back then Disney-Pixar said it abandoned the trademark because they had changed the name of the film, but Unkrich recently told Vanity Fair that not only was the move a mistake but it had been “personally devastating.”
The core team that's making sure #PixarCoco stays culturally honest! @laloalcaraz, @mdaviles1 & @OctavioSolis5 pic.twitter.com/LKwg7Q10No
— Lee Unkrich (@leeunkrich) May 20, 2016
“I’ll be the first to say that going on a few research trips doesn’t make us experts in anything,” Unkrich told Vanity Fair. "But it would have been wrong for us not to go down. I knew from day one, when John Lasseter gave the okay, that we had an enormous responsibility to tell this story right and to not lapse into cliche or stereotype.”
Before You Go
