After carving out indelible classics in the field of animation, one can’t entirely fault Pixar for attempting to wrangle the same audience now that they’ve relied more on sequels than ever as of late. From this year’s Finding Dory leading up to Toy Story 4 in 2019, we’ll only be getting one original film from the studio and today we have many more details on the project, titled Coco.
Announced back in 2012, we knew the Mexico-set animation would be directed by Lee Unkrich (Toy Story 3) and was set during the Day of the Dead, but beyond that, details were kept at a minimum. Thanks to a new EW feature, more information has arrived, notably that Benjamin Bratt and Gael García Bernal will be taking lead voice roles along with newcomer Anthony Gonzalez as the 12-year-old character of Miguel while Renée Victor plays his grandmother Abuelita.
Now, for the actual story: it follows Miguel as a boy living in a Mexican village. He adores music, but his shoemaking family has banned it for generations as they believe it’s a curse passed down from his great-grandfather. As we await the first trailer — likely attached to Cars 3 this summer, if not earlier — check out more of the plot below along with the first concept art and poster.
Miguel harbors a secret desire to seize his musical moment, inspired by his favorite singer of all time, the late Ernesto de la Cruz (Bratt). It’s only after Miguel discovers an amazing link between himself and De la Cruz that he takes action to emulate the famous singer and, in doing so, accidentally enters the Land of the Dead.
In the beautiful underworld, it’s not long until Miguel encounters the souls of his own family — generations’ worth of long-dead but no less vivacious Rivera ancestors, including great-grandmother Imelda. Still, given the opportunity to roam around the Land of the Dead, Miguel decides to track down De la Cruz himself. He teams up with another friendly (and skeletal) spirit — a trickster named Hector, voiced by Bernal — to find De la Cruz, earn his family’s blessing to perform, and return to the Land of the Living before time runs out.
Coco will be released on November 22, 2017.