Coco (film)

Coco is an upcoming Disney/Pixar film centered around the Day of the Dead (Spanish: Día de los Muertos). Coco will be Pixar's 19th feature film, and is set to be released on November 22, 2017.

Synopsis
Coco follows a 12-year-old boy named Miguel who sets off a chain of events relating to a century-old mystery. The official story description is: “Coco is the celebration of a lifetime, where the discovery of a generations-old mystery leads to a most extraordinary and surprising family reunion."

Coco  follows the secret musical ambitions of Miguel, who resides in a lively, loud Mexican village but comes from a family of shoemakers that may be the town’s only music-hating household. For generations, the Riveras have banned music because they believe they’ve been cursed by it; as their family history goes, Miguel’s great-great-grandfather abandoned his wife decades earlier to follow his own dreams of performing, leaving Imelda (Miguel’s great-great-grandmother) to take control as the matriarch of the now-thriving Rivera line and declare music dead to the family forever.

But 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.

Cast

 * Anthony Gonzales as Miguel
 * Gael García Bernal as Héctor
 * Benjamin Bratt as Ernesto De la Cruz
 * Renee Victor as Abuelita
 * John Ratzenberger as TBA

Official Announcement
Disney/Pixar announced Lee Unkrich's next film at CinemaCon on April 24, 2012. For now it is being referred to as The Untitled Pixar Movie About Día de los Muertos. The official synopsis is: "From director Lee Unkrich and producer Darla K. Anderson, the filmmaking team behind the Academy Award®-winning Toy Story 3, comes a wholly original Pixar Animation Studios film that delves into the vibrant holiday of Día de los Muertos."

- Official Announcement

Release
Coco is confirmed to be released on November 22, 2017. Pixar's very first movie, Toy Story, was released in 1995 that same day.

Development
On May 11, 2013, The Walt Disney Company request a trademark the phrase "Dia de los Muertos" for various merchandise. This is cause criticism from Latino community.

The team made a trip to Mexico to find many references to help defining the characters and the story. Unkrich said, "I'd seen it portrayed in folk art. It was something about the juxtaposition of skeletons with bright, festive colors that captured my imagination. It has led me down a winding path of discovery. And the more I learn about Día de los Muertos, the more it affects me deeply."

In 2015, Disney hired Lalo Alcaraz as a consultant for the film. He is a Mexican-American cartoonist who drew a satire film poster depicting a skeletal gigantic Mickey Mouse with a line "It's coming to trademark your culture."

On April 13, 2016, Disney and Pixar announce that they start the animation process.

Trivia

 * "Coco" is a ghost-monster "bogeyman" hispanic, in the context of the film.
 * This is Lee Unkrich's second Pixar feature film as a director, the first was Toy Story 3. However, this is Lee Unkrich's first feature for an original property.