Here’s how audiences, in general, tend to react while watching a Pixar movie.
They smile.
They laugh.
They get a wee bit misty-eyed.
And near the finale when Andy ventures off to college and leaves his beloved toys forlornly behind or a particular emotion overwhelms anxiety-riddled Riley, the torrent of unstoppable tears follow.
It’s a winning pattern that’s served the studio’s most memorable classics well, from “Toy Story” to “Inside Out 2.”
Now comes “Hoppers,” the Emeryville-based animation giant’s bouncy 30th feature. The primary goal this time out for director Daniel Chong, screenwriter Jesse Andrews and producer Nicole Paradis Grindle was to make audiences laugh again and again at the madcap antics of feisty 19-year-old activist/nature lover Mabel Tanaka, whose consciousness gets zapped into a cute robotic beaver who then ingratiates herself into the pond community. There, she attempts to rally creatures to act as a stopgap in a slick mayor’s bozo plan that would obliterate their habitat.
‘Hoppers” opens March 6 in theaters and is all but guaranteed to make you laugh, and yes, even mist up, of course.
“That was the No. 1 thing that guided the movie,” Chong said. “It was comedy first. Entertainment first. And it was something that we all had to hold hands on because we really needed every department to agree that that was going to be what we’re chasing.”
As with all Pixar efforts, “Hoppers” was a true collaborative effort and drew everyone into making the comedy-first credo hold firm, said Grindle. (Chong’s initial pitch involved penguins but over time that got changed.)
To do so led to countless organic, anything-goes brainstorming sessions where ideas got bounced around, played out with artists and storytellers creating various scenarios. In person, you can sense Chong thrives in a free-flowing creative environment, and it has served him well. In addition to his work as a storyboard artist on Pixar’s “Inside Out” and “Cars 2” and two “Toy Story” TV specials — one of which earned him an Annie Award — he has worked on the animated features “Bolt,” “Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax” and “Free Birds.” “Hoppers” is his first feature-length directorial effort at Pixar. He started there in 2009 and left in 2014 when he then created the 2-D animated family hit “We Bare Bears” for the Cartoon Network. Now he’s back at Pixar and embracing the comedy-first goal, even if achieving it kept everyone at Pixar hopping.
“Once we realized that that was going to be the guiding principle behind it, whether it works or not, at least holistically, it really helped us get the best work in the most entertaining sequences we could possibly get. And then they would throw it back at me too. If we were not writing or storyboarding it to the best of our ability, people would say it’s not funny enough, you need to go harder. So we would be like that’s fair. Let’s go back and make sure we get the laughs we need.”
The laughs lead to a number of storytelling zingers, one an absolute jaw-dropper.
Screenwriter Jesse Andrews of Kensington, who also co-wrote the screenplay for Pixar’s “Luca” and penned the novel and the screen version for “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl,” recalls how that shocker came about. (Chong’s initial pitch involved penguins but over time that got changed.)
“In the original outline, it was almost combined with another massive twist,” he recalls. “So there were two twists taking place. We were all pretty twist-crazy. We were just like injecting ‘Mission: Impossible’ into our veins. Anything that was twisty and surprising and unexpected, taking our cues from Daniel who is so entertainment forward and just trying to create these big movie moments that are unforgettable and are like a big part of why we go to the movies.”
They decided two twists in one sequence was a bit much and didn’t allow time for audiences to process.
“The second twist is still kind of in the movie, but it’s now really late.”
Witnessing early audiences’ reactions to that first twist has delighted Chong and Grindle, who lives in San Francisco
“We kind of secretly pull out our phones to record the audience,” Chong said. “And it’s the funnest experience, and the most gratifying thing to see people react at that moment in such a big way. And everyone responds kind of in different ways … gasps, screams. It’s a little delayed, but overall, everybody is kind of leaning in and they cannot believe the turns that our story is taking.”
Essential to pulling off those surprises is attracting a top voice cast and “Hoppers” comes with quite an A-list pedigree, Palo Alto native Dave Franco as a spawn with attitude, Jon Hamm as a slick mayor, Meryl Streep as the cunning Insect Queen, the late Isaiah Whitlock Jr. as The Bird King, Bobby Moynihan (who worked with Chong on “We Bare Bears”) as the beaver King George and Piper Curda as Mabel.
Chong envisioned certain voices for the characters and then would go to the casting team to ask if it was possible to get the acting he was looking for, Grindle recalls.
But seriously, Meryl Streep? As in the three-time Oscar winner?
“… They said ‘well you can pitch it to her,’” Grindle recalls. “And so we did that and she loved the story. (It) turns out she’s really into beavers. She lives some place near a beaver lodge and completely understands their importance.”
Illustrating how and why beavers are so important was another goal for the filmmakers, and to come up with an accurate depiction of a pond crew and to show the beavers’ natural habitat, the Pixar team consulted with one of the nation’s leading experts, Dr. Emily Fairfax who helped give it authenticity.
At a January press event at the Emeryville headquarters, Fairfax spoke about how beavers continue to help mitigate fire destruction and play an essential role in keeping the environment and water systems healthy while creating a welcoming haven for other wildlife.
To better understand beavers, Chong and numerous “pond crew” Pixar team members tramped over to the Oakland Zoo to study bears there and even checked out a beaver lodge in Fairfield. They also ventured with Dr. Fairfax to Colorado and even traveled to Yellowstone and ventured inside an abandoned beaver lodge.
All that shaped how they brought the pond community to animated life, but Pixar also wanted to create a more realistic Mabel, who’s passionate about wildlife and ecological issues. So they tapped into the knowledge base of Bay Area environmental organizers and asked them to say what they were like when they were younger.
The research helped the filmmakers inform a prevailing theme in the film about creating community “and finding like-minded people who care about the same thing and will fight with you and have your back,” Chong said.
That message couldn’t arrive at a more crucial time.
“Isolation, in general, is a problem that a lot of young people are suffering from, a lot of people in general are suffering from,” Grindle said. “I think that emerged as something that was also a part of the story we were telling … how hard it is for someone to be alone. That you have to find those connections in order to energize yourself for whatever you’re trying to accomplish, and to get hope and to get inspiration. You can’t do it alone, and I think a lot of people think they can or feel like they’re failing somehow, and it’s just when you might make a connection like King George when he steps up to Mabel. I think we feel that emotion because we think that is what she needs. That was what was missing.
“That’s what we all need.”
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