Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur has quickly become a curiosity among animation fans, as information on the project (the second of two films to mark Pixar’s 2015 return to theaters) has been even more scarce than what’s now known about Inside Out.
What’s more, it’s the latest Pixar film to have some behind-the-scenes trouble, as its original director, Bob Peterson, was replaced by a brain trust of Pixar talent, which includes John Lasseter, Lee Unkrich, Mark Andrews, and the film’s co-director Peter Sohn.
But now we finally have an update on the film, courtesy of an interview from Collider with one of the actors, John Lithgow. Needless to say, what he revealed may come as a bit of a surprise.
According to Lithgow, the whole entire story for The Good Dinosaur has been completely reimagined from the ground up. Thus, he has to completely re-record his voice role to service the new story.
A quote from Lithgow:
“They have now dismantled it and completely reimagined it, and it is a fantastic new story. So I’m gonna record again on it within the next month. Don’t worry. It’s coming and it’s gonna be better than I ever imagined.”
This is, all things considered, a pretty drastic change. Going beyond replacing the original director, the entire project is seemingly undergoing a complete overhaul.
And while this is only pure speculation, it also sounds like there’s a possibility of some of the roles may be recast. As Lithgow notes:
“But me and Frannie McDormand, we’re still playing Momma and Poppa dinosaur.”
Previously, the cast was rounded out by Lucas Neff, Bill Hader, Neil Patrick Harris, and Judy Greer. It’s currently unknown if any of them will be sticking around with Lithgow and McDormand.
Again, this is not the first troubled Pixar project, but appears that it has the most visible issues out of any of them. Not to mention that the reason for Peterson’s departure was allegedly because he had difficulty cracking the the film’s third act, which may have been the genesis for his replacement and might even played a huge part for why Pixar decided to completely rework the entire story.
The Good Dinosaur is still scheduled for release on November 25, 2015. Whether or not these drastic changes will result in a knockout end product for Pixar remains to be seen.
