Two new Pixar projects announced at D23 convention

Disney have been showcasing hopeful hits from their upcoming catalogue at this weekend's D23 convention, and they've also taken the time to announce a couple of new Pixar films.

Details are extremely scarce at the moment, but the new projects will take dinosaurs and the human brain as their subjects.

First up, Bob Peterson (co-director of Up ) will direct Untitled Pixar Movie About Dinosaurs , which is expected to be released for Christmas 2013. Apparently it imagines a world in which the terrible lizards weren't wiped out by an asteroid.

Spoiler-free concept art saw a little kid sitting on the head of a brachiosaurus.

Then, in summer 2014, we're expected to see a movie currently nicknamed Untitled Pixar Movie That You See Inside The Human Brain .

While information was again in short supply on this one (it's currently in the very early stages of development), director Pete Docter ( Up , Monsters, Inc ) said the head-set story would examine, "how we forget, why certain songs get stuck in our heads… It's a place that we've all been to but have never seen."

At the expo, Pixar also presented footage from Brave (due summer 2012) and concept art for Monsters University (summer 2013), and well as offering a glimpse at DTV Cars -spinoff Planes .

Although we'll have to wait at least two years to see any of these newly announced, titleless projects, it's inspiring to know that Pixar are still focusing on interesting original projects instead of simply cannibalising their back catalogue.

Monsters University sounds potentially amazing, but we're pleased it'll be surrounded by new stuff, rather than Cars 3 and A Bug's Life: Metamorphosis .

There was no official word on Toy Story 4 mind, although another TS short will air with Disney's The Muppets this winter…

Matt Maytum
Editor, Total Film

I'm the Editor at Total Film magazine, overseeing the running of the mag, and generally obsessing over all things Nolan, Kubrick and Pixar. Over the past decade I've worked in various roles for TF online and in print, including at GamesRadar+, and you can often hear me nattering on the Inside Total Film podcast. Bucket-list-ticking career highlights have included reporting from the set of Tenet and Avengers: Infinity War, as well as covering Comic-Con, TIFF and the Sundance Film Festival.