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Pixar just dropped some massive news at the Annecy Animation Festival, and if you are a fan of stunning animation, funny animals, or nostalgic throwbacks, you’re going to want to sit down for this. The beloved studio gave us a massive, behind-the-scenes look at their next big movie, Pixar “Gatto“, which looks like a cross between Luca and Goodfellas (yes, really). If that wasn’t enough, they also surprised everyone by announcing a brand-new short film called Loving Dory, bringing us right back into the beautiful underwater world of Finding Nemo.
Let’s dive into all the juicy details, the wild new animation styles Pixar is inventing, and when you can finally see these projects on the big screen!
What is Pixar’s New Movie Pixar “Gatto” About?
If you loved the gorgeous, sunny Italian vibes of Pixar’s 2021 hit Luca, you are in for a treat. The director of Luca, Enrico Casarosa, is back with another Italian adventure. But this time, we are trading the quiet Italian Riviera for the busy, romantic, and slightly sketchy canals of Venice.
The Plot: A Feline Mobster Story
So, what is the movie actually about? Imagine a classic gangster film, but everyone has paws.
- The Main Character: Nero, a street-smart cat living in Venice.
- The Hustle: Nero lives a pretty sweet life of crime. He takes advantage of the fact that humans (and other animals) in Venice are incredibly superstitious. Because of the color of his fur, he knows exactly how to play people to get what he wants.
- The Boss: Nero works under the watchful eye and terrifying temper of Rocco, a mob boss who basically rules all the animals in the city.
- The Twist: Nero gets sent on a high-stakes mission to steal a special, cat-themed violin from a human street performer named Maya. Along the way, Nero starts having second thoughts and has to decide where his true loyalties lie.
During the presentation, Pixar even showed off footage featuring a voiceover that felt exactly like a classic Martin Scorsese or Ray Liotta gangster movie. A mobster movie starring alley cats in Venice? Sign us up!
>>> Read more: Pixar’s Upcoming Movies
The Animation Style of Pixar “Gatto”: Walking Inside a Van Gogh Painting
Pixar has always been the king of 3D animation, but lately, they’ve been experimenting with styles that look less like computers and more like hand-drawn art. Gatto is taking this to a whole new level.
Director Enrico Casarosa told the crowd that the movie has a highly immersive, tactile, and “painterly” look.
“We’re very excited to have this expressive style and love the idea that the audience is walking into a Van Gogh painting.” — Enrico Casarosa, Director
Old-School 2D Animation Tricks in a 3D World
To make Gatto look like a living painting rather than a standard digital movie, Pixar is actually stealing tricks from old-school, hand-drawn 2D animation:
- Smear Frames and Multiples: When characters move super fast, the animators are drawing extra arms and feet to show speed. If a cat is waving its paws frantically, you might see five paws on screen for a split second!
- Chicken Scratches: The tops of the Venetian buildings have rough, sketchy lines drawn on them to make them look hand-crafted.
- Organic Imperfections: The character models stretch so much they look like they might break, and the frame rate intentionally drops during certain moments to give it a cozy, stop-motion, or hand-made feel.
- Water Reflections: Since the movie takes place in Venice, water is everywhere. Instead of letting a computer perfectly mirror the background in the water, Pixar’s tech team created a system that draws a simplified, watercolor brushstroke version of the scene and mirrors that instead. The result? The canals look like a moving watercolor painting.
When Does “Gatto” Come Out?
The movie is currently halfway through production. Pixar announced that Gatto is officially scheduled to hit theaters in March 2027. Casarosa promised it will have “a lot of heart, a lot of humor, and a lot of cats.”
Surprise! Dory is Back in a Hilarious New Short Film
Just when the crowd thought the Pixar presentation was over, producer Mary Alice Drumm and director Lou Hamou-Lhadj took the stage to drop a bombshell. They are making a new short film called Loving Dory!
The Story: Dory Falls in Love… With Trash?
We all know and love Dory, the forgetful blue tang fish voiced by Ellen DeGeneres in Finding Nemo and Finding Dory. Well, Dory is looking for romance, but because her short-term memory isn’t great, things go hilariously wrong.
In short, Dory falls head-over-fins in love with a floating plastic bag that drifts down into the ocean. Why? Because she completely mistakes it for a beautiful jellyfish.
While the short is a romantic comedy on the surface, it also has a deeper message. It shines a light on ocean pollution and how human trash disrupts marine life, but it does it in a funny, lighthearted way. The creators showed a clip where Dory’s fin gets tangled up in the plastic bag’s handles. As they drift together through the current, the bag accidentally “picks” a bouquet of coral for her, perfectly mimicking classic rom-com tropes.
How Pixar is Changing How Movies are Made
While Loving Dory looks visually identical to the bright, beautiful ocean world we remember from Finding Nemo, the technology behind it is a massive game-changer for Pixar.
Live-Action Puppetry Inside a Computer
Normally, animating a 3D character is a slow, tedious process. Animators have to click on digital joints, rotate limbs, and move sliders on a computer screen frame by frame.
For Loving Dory, director Lou Hamou-Lhadj revealed they used a brand-new real-time puppetry technique.
| Traditional Pixar Animation | The New Real-Time Puppetry System |
| Animators use complex digital dials, rotation widgets, and translation handles. | Animators simply move their mouse cursor, and the character follows it instantly. |
| It can take days or weeks to see how a rough scene looks with multiple characters. | The background characters move automatically using smart, computer-generated code. |
| Making changes requires rebuilding the character’s poses from scratch. | Restaging a scene is instant, allowing directors to experiment on the fly. |
This new system makes animating feel like directing a real, live-action actor. The director can tell the digital puppet where to go, and the animator can improvise movements instantly.
Why This Matters for the Future of Pixar
Don’t worry, this doesn’t mean Pixar is getting lazy. This puppetry tool is only used in the early planning stages (called pre-visualization) to test out ideas quickly. The final movie will still be polished by hand to meet the incredibly high theatrical standards we expect from Pixar.
This tech was a lifesaver for Loving Dory because it allowed the team to easily animate scenes with more than 10 characters at once. It also helped them perfect the tricky, floating physics of the plastic bag.
“Ascribing personality to the inanimate is the sort of challenge that feels classic Pixar to me. Our animation team has been mining lots of opportunities to ride the line between how Dory and the rest of the world see it…” — Lou Hamou-Lhadj, Director
When Can We Watch “Loving Dory”?
Like Gatto, Loving Dory is about halfway finished. However, the director dropped a major hint about its release strategy.
Usually, Pixar plays a short film right before their main feature movie in theaters. But Hamou-Lhadj mentioned that Loving Dory will need to be finished much earlier than Gatto. Because of this timeline difference, it probably will not play in front of Gatto in March 2027. Instead, it might premiere on Disney+ or debut in front of a different Disney/Pixar movie earlier in the year.
Either way, the creators are overjoyed to be back under the sea. “It is an understatement to say it has been a delight to return to this world,” Hamou-Lhadj shared.
Final Thoughts: A Bright Future for Pixar
After a few years of experimenting with different types of stories, Pixar is leaning heavily into what they do best: heartfelt stories, mind-blowing technological breakthroughs, and worlds that feel completely magical.
Whether you are excited to explore the gritty animal underworld of Venice in Gatto or take another trip to the Great Barrier Reef with our favorite forgetful fish in Loving Dory, 2027 is shaping up to be an unbelievable year for animation fans.
Which project are you most excited for? Are you team Cat Mobster or team Plastic Bag Romance? Let us know in the comments below!
