Pixar is developing its first official musical-movie, accordng to a report from the Wall Street Journal.
The currently untitled musical film will be directed by Turning Red’s Domee Shi, and is one of three new projects revealed in the report. The other two newly revealed projects mentioned by WSJ are a third Monsters Inc. movie, and an original film, Ono Ghost Market, which is reportedly about Asian myths of supernatural bazaars bringing together the living and the dead.
While Pixar has produced films with music before — namely, Coco, which many have classified as a musical — this is the first from the studio that is being called a musical outright.
It is likely that Coco is not being considered a musical because its songs are diegetic, meaning they exist as songs within the universe of the story. The act of singing or performing the songs are part of Coco’s plot.
As for Pixar’s experience with musicals, the studio has never produced a musical-movie with non-diegetic music. Interestingly, though, two of its non-musical films have been given the musical treatment.
Finding Nemo: The Big Blue… And Beyond! (originally titled Finding Nemo — The Musical) is performed multiple times a day at Disney’s Animal Kingdom in Walt Disney World, and features original songs throughout the story. This version of the show has also been adapted into Finding Nemo Jr., a popular choice for children’s theaters.
Additionally, Toy Story was made into a musical for Disney Cruise lines, though it ran for a significantly shorter time than Finding Nemo.
