Pixar Boss Pete Docter Says the Studio ‘Trained’ Families to Expect Disney+ Debuts, ‘Elemental’ Buzz at Cannes Was ‘Confusing’

Pete Docter, Pixars creative chief officer, is hoping the animation studios 27th release, Elemental, will draw families to movie theaters this weekend. Peter Sohns film is a story about immigration, families, duty and love. Not only does Docter say the visuals are a spectacle, but believes it should be experienced with an audience.

Docter, who has been with the studio since the beginning and was upped to CCO in 2018, has come under criticism recently that Pixar has lost its magic touch.

Here, Docter sits down with Variety over Zoom to discuss Pixars approach to programming, Cannes, Elemental, and whats next for the studio.

In a recent interview you said, I dont think of Pixar as making childrens programming. Can you elaborate on that? Weve always looked at what we do as were the first audience. We make stuff we want to see ourselves. Theres a Chuck Jones quote that I love and he said, We like to make films that are simple enough for adults, but sophisticated enough that kids will find them interesting too. Its just the switch on what youd expect. We all have kids and we know that kids are going to watch them, but we want to find something at the heart of all these movies that speaks to us as human beings so theres something there for the parents. Weve had that approach from the very beginning.

Can you talk about the strategy behind putting releases on Disney+? We made Soul for the big screen. We looked at every frame. Theres so much detail and gorgeous imagery and work that was done that you cant quite appreciate on a smaller screen. However, there was a pandemic going on. On one hand, we were so thankful that there was Disney+ so that we could release the film and people could see it. Otherwise, it would just sit on a shelf for a year and a half.

In the long run, theres been a bit of a mixed blessing because weve trained audiences that these films will be available for you on Disney+. And its more expensive for a family of four to go to a theater when they know they can wait and itll come out on the platform.

Were trying to make sure people realize theres a great deal youre missing by not seeing it on the big screen. In the case of Elemental, its a beautiful spectacle, theres detail everywhere. I think you feel it more and its a better experience. Theres the shared experience as well, that you get to see it in a room with strangers, and theres something about the energy that comes from other people that makes the whole experience more vibrant and interesting.

In films like Lightyear and Elemental, do you ever worry that the characters are too complicated for audiences to understand? I like to think where we start from is trying to appeal to the kid in all of us. For me with Monsters Inc., l always believed in monsters as a kid. I was fascinated by them. As an animator, I wanted to sit, draw and animate monsters. With Pete Sohn, we made characters out of fire and water. What do they eat? How do they drive to work? Where do they work? There were all these questions where your mind starts to expand out in all directions and imagine this world, and thats what I love.

Thats where we started. As we get into filmmaking, we think of it in layers. The first thing as were developing the story is probably the more adult aspect of the thing, trying to tap into something that appeals to our common experience as human beings: The loss of loved ones, becoming a parent, and the struggle between duty and love. Those are things that I think kids may or may not have gotten to that point yet, but the adults really resonate with that. With the layers, we go in, and we try to do physical and verbal comedy. We look at the visual puns and approach as many different venues as we can, so that theres really something there for everybody. Thats the hope.

Whats your take on the idea that audiences prefer established IP and arent as keen on new and original characters like Luca and The Good Dinosaur? My dad was a musician. He always talks about music as a combination of the comfort of familiarity and surprise. If it tips in either direction, it doesnt work. If you can tell where every next note is going to fall, youre like, hmmm. But if every note is a surprise, and you dont know where its going, and its so foreign, it doesnt work either. So, most people generally gravitate towards music which is a sweet spot, somewhere in the middle.

Right now, the world seems to want the comfort of what they know, which is sequels, and movies based on things like comic books or video games. But all of these things were original at one point. I think its essential for us to develop new original stories, which are harder to publicize, harder to get people excited to go see them. But I think audiences deserve it. They want to find that surprise, along with the comfort of the expectation. We have our share of sequels in the works. Were doing a sequel to Inside Out, so you get to go back inside the mind of Joy and Sadness. We have another Toy Story, so Woody and Buzz are back. And we have a few other projects, but its always a balance.

You mentioned Toy Story and Inside Out, would you like to revisit Cars, Nemo or even the Incredibles as potential sequels? Its all fair game. Our philosophy from the beginning has been the same. The people have changed, but the approach is the same. We tap people that we believe in and feel like they have talent and something to say. We ask them to talk about things that are important to them. If this is impactful and powerful to a person, theyre going to get on the screen, and it will resonate with audiences. Were looking to tap these amazingly talented people I get to work with to talk about universal stories that are about life issues that we all face. Our movies on the surface are about fish, cars and monsters, but just below that, theyre really about all of us, and the challenge of dealing with loss, becoming a parent, finding our place in the world.

How are you looking at getting audiences back to movie theaters? It does seem like certain audience members are more likely to go back, from what the research has shown. First of all, when youre young, you feel like youre immortal and danger is not for you. It does seem that audiences are going back. I think families with kids are more reluctant. Its not just health, its the cost. Its not a cheap outing to go to the theater and buy popcorn. Its a great time, but they really are very selective about what theyre going to go see. Thats where it is tougher to have original films because if youre going to bet on something, youre probably going to say, Ive seen that before. I know I like it and lets go with the sequel.

We do have a balance of those. But right now, with Elemental, its an original. What were trying to do is to lean on the spectacle, the scope, the scale and all those things that just make for a different and more impactful experience. Yes, you can see it on your small screen, and itll be cool there too. But there is something about being in the dark and seeing it on the big screen with the sound and music. The music by Thomas Newman is great. He knocked it out of the park. When you go to the theater, its this rich immersive experience, and you feel like youre in the middle of the score. So, those would be the reasons I would think people would want to go see it in a theater.

Did you look at the reviews from Cannes? That was a confusing half-hour there. The film played, we got a seven-minute standing ovation, and you could feel the love beaming down from the audience to Pete. They really responded to it. Then the embargo lifted and some of the reviews were pretty nasty. I guess there are probably a lot of reasons for that. This is our 27th film. For some reason, we seem to be critiqued not only based on other movies but on our own stuff. So, people will say, Oh, its not as good as my favorite Pixar film, whatever that is.

On one hand, thats flattering, and its also kind of a tough position to be in and very tricky. Im not sure that we would say we regret going to Cannes or anything like that. It was such a fantastic audience of film lovers.

Have you seen recent animated box office hits Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and The Super Mario Bros. Movie? What were your thoughts? I saw Spider-Verse this last week when it came out. It was amazing. I love the visuals. My friend Kemp Powers [who was one of the Spider-Verse directors] was one of the directors of Soul. I can feel his touch at certain points, especially in the scenes with Myles and his parents. Its almost like a different language in terms of the cinema, the storytelling. Its really leaning into the comic book of it. Compared to ours, its just a different thing. Thats the great thing about having so much stuff: Its art. Its not a competition. I think theres room for a lot of different perspectives, and audiences respond to a great swath of different things. Its great for animation, and the fact that its being pushed in so many different ways, I think its exciting.

Whats next for Pixar? Our general approach is unchanged. We try to find fun subjects and tell them in a relatable and entertaining way. The next thing we have coming up is our first long-form streaming series, Win or Lose. We said, If were going to do a series, we dont want to do something expected. We want to push the limits as far as we can. It looks like Pixar, but in a new flavor that we havent experienced before. Its really cool.

We have Inside Out coming out next summer, and then Elio. Thats about a kid who feels like he doesnt quite fit in. Somehow, he is selected to be the Earths representative at an intergalactic community of planets. The fate of the Earth is in this kids hands. We had an audience test screening last week. Its compelling, fun and very funny.

As for Inside Out, a bunch more emotions get to come in. Its not just the five we saw in the first film. The team on that one put together a really great story that I think also has real depth and meaning to it. So fingers crossed that people like it.