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Fans of heartfelt animation have a new date to mark in their calendars: Pixar's 27th feature film, Elemental, will release on June 16, 2023.
Elemental is set in a city where fire, water, land, and air-residents live together. It follows Ember, a fiery young woman, and go-with-the-flow water guy Wade as they discover how much they have in common, despite their apparent differences.
The film was inspired by director Peter Sohn's childhood in New York City.
So far, Pixar has only released a logo and a single piece of concept art, with no word on when we might be treated to a trailer.
“My parents emigrated from Korea in the early 1970s and built a bustling grocery store in the Bronx,” he said. “We were among many families who ventured to a new land with hopes and dreams—all of us mixing into one big salad bowl of cultures, languages and beautiful little neighborhoods. That’s what led me to ‘Elemental.’”
“Our story is based on the classic elements—fire, water, land and air,” Sohn continued. “Some elements mix with each other, and some don’t. What if these elements were alive?”
Pixar has garnered praise (and, occasionally, disappointment) in recent years for giving greater prominence to minority characters and production teams — most notably in 2020's Soul and 2022's Turning Red. Sohn's use of "salad bowl" suggests that Elemental may examine the idea of the American 'melting pot,' the combination of cultures within major cities. It's unclear what angle Elemental could take, as the melting pot concept is viewed by some as worth celebrating, but by other as eliminating the enormous cultural diversity of places like New York City.
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Sohn previously worked on The Good Dinosaur and the Partly Cloudy short. Elemental is produced by Denise Ream of The Good Dinosaur and Cars 2 fame.
Elemental won't be the studio's first post-pandemic cinema release. Lightyear, which tells the origin story of Toy Story's Buzz Lightyear, will come to theatres on June 17 2022.
Jack Richardson is a freelance writer at IGN.
