With Hoppers, Pixar tests the appetite for original stories. Will audiences bite?

In 2020, We Bare Bears creator Daniel Chong came to Pixar leaders with an idea.

He had seen documentaries in which robotic animals with eyeball cameras captured footage of natural habitats. But what if that technology was so good that no one could tell the difference? And to make it even more zany, what if someone went undercover in that animal body?

That idea became the basis of Walt Disney and Pixar’s new animated movie, Hoppers, now showing in cinemas. The film is Pixar’s latest attempt to break through at the box office with an original story, something that has been a struggle for the storied animation studio since the Covid-19 pandemic.

The pressure of Pixar’s legacy can be a little overwhelming, and coming up with an original idea is difficult, says Chong, who directed Hoppers and also served as a writer on the film.

“For a Pixar movie, it’s very high stakes,” he says. “But I just felt like I had a really funny idea, and I thought as long as we made it really funny and had characters you loved, to me that’s the key to every Pixar movie – really awesome characters that really connect emotionally with people.”

Director Daniel Chong attends the premiere of Hoppers at El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles, California, on February 23, 2026. Photo: Reuters

Recent theatrical success for Pixar, as well as other animation studios, has come from sequels, such as 2024’s Inside Out 2, which grossed US$1.7 billion globally. But the reputation of Pixar, which is based in Emeryville, California, is built on its string of blockbuster originals, including 1995’s Toy Story, 2001’s Monsters, Inc and 2004’s The Incredibles, making new stories crucial to the studio’s future.

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