PIXAR Moves GOOD DINOSAUR And FINDING DORY Release Dates Back A Year

If you’re looking forward to a new Pixar film next year, you’re going to have to wait a bit longer as the animation studio is moving their 2014 film The Good Dinosaur back a year to November 25, 2015. The move also affects the anticipated Finding Nemo sequel Finding Dory, moving it out of its 2015 spot that Good Dinosaur is taking to June 17, 2016. To fill the whole that the vacating Good Dinosaur left, Disney is moving their live action Maleficent up from July 2, 2014 to May 30. The moves will mark the first time in nine years that the studio has gone a full year without a release.

The move doesn’t come as much of a surprise. The film’s director Bob Peterson was conspicuously absent at this summer’s D23 Expo and his official departure from the project was announced a few weeks later.

As Pixar president, Ed Catmull stated to the LA Times –

Nobody ever remembers the fact that you slipped a film, but they will remember a bad film. Our conclusion was that we were going to give the [dinosaur] film some more time.

A good sentiment that more studios should perhaps embrace. Or was Catmull still smarting from the less than rousing success that has met recent Pixar releases Brave, Cars 2 and Monsters University?

No replacement for Peterson has been announced yet, but a team of Pixar creatives including Chief Creative Officer John Lasseter, Toy Story 3 director Lee Unkrich, Brave director Mark Andrews and the film’s original co-director, Peter Sohn, have stepped up and are overseeing various sections of the movie.

For now, the next new Pixar film to come our way will be Inside Out, the studio’s rather risky project that is set entirely inside the mind of a young girl. It will hit theaters on June 19, 2015.