Hoppers (film)
2026 film by Daniel Chong
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Hoppers is a 2026 American animated science fiction comedy film[5] produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. Directed by Daniel Chong and written by Jesse Andrews from a story by Chong and Andrews, the film stars the voices of Piper Curda, Bobby Moynihan, Jon Hamm, Kathy Najimy, and Dave Franco. The film follows animal-loving college student Mabel (Curda), who transfers her mind into a lifelike robotic beaver to communicate with animals and save their habitat from human destruction, inadvertently sparking an uprising in the process.
- Daniel Chong
- Jesse Andrews
| Hoppers | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Daniel Chong |
| Screenplay by | Jesse Andrews |
| Story by |
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| Produced by | Nicole Paradis Grindle |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography |
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| Edited by | Axel Geddes |
| Music by | Mark Mothersbaugh |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures[a] |
Release dates |
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Running time | 104 minutes[1] |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $150 million[2] |
| Box office | $386 million[3][4] |
Chong began developing a new original film at Pixar in December 2020 after returning to the studio. The project was officially announced as Hoppers in August 2024, with Curda, Moynihan, and Hamm revealed as part of the cast. Development on the film lasted six years. Mark Mothersbaugh composed the score, while SZA wrote and performed the end credits song "Save the Day".
Hoppers premiered at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles on February 23, 2026, and was released in the United States on March 6. The film received positive reviews from critics and was a box-office success, grossing $386 million worldwide for a $150 million budget, becoming the sixth-highest grossing film of 2026.
Plot
In the city of Beaverton, Mabel Tanaka spends her childhood with her grandmother in a nearby forest glade filled with wild animals. Inspired by her grandmother, Mabel develops a deep appreciation for nature and continues watching over the glade after her estranged parents leave town and her grandmother dies. When Beaverton's mayor, Jerry Generazzo, announces plans to replace the glade with a freeway—claiming the animals have already left—Mabel campaigns against the project but gains no support. Her activism causes her to neglect her college studies, drawing criticism from her biology professor, Dr. Sam Fairfax.
While trying to lure the animals back to the glade, Mabel discovers that Sam and her colleagues, Nisha and Conner, have secretly developed the "Hoppers" program, a technology that allows a human consciousness to "hop" into a robotic animal and experience life as that species. Despite Sam's warning that interfering with wildlife could have disastrous consequences, Mabel sees an opportunity to save the glade, hops into a robotic beaver, and escapes the lab.
Mistaken for a real beaver, Mabel is brought before Mammal King George, a beaver monarch sheltering the glade's displaced animals in an overcrowded dam. She discovers an artificial tree emitting sound waves audible only to animals, secretly installed by Jerry to drive them away. Ignoring Conner's attempts to return her to the lab, Mabel destroys the device, prompting many animals to return to the glade. As she grows closer to George, who asks her to become his advisor, she prepares to reveal her true identity. Before she can, Jerry destroys the glade with explosives, installs more sound-emitting trees, and resumes construction.
Mabel and George convene a meeting of the Animal Council, attended by monarchs representing the Insect, Amphibian, Fish, Reptile, and Bird classes. Initially indifferent, the Council is persuaded to act after Mabel presents the destroyed sound tree and warns that Jerry will eventually target all their habitats. However, her speech instead inspires the Council to assassinate Jerry. When Mabel attempts to stop them, she accidentally kills the Insect Queen, making herself their next target. She and George flee while the animals destroy the robotic bodies Nisha and Conner had hopped into to help them escape, exposing the deception. The Insect Prince, Titus, crowns himself king and takes control of the Council.
Although upset that Mabel undermined his authority, George agrees to help protect Jerry after she confesses to feeling powerless and isolated. Joined by three animals Mabel befriended, they locate Jerry and force him to drive to the glade using text-to-speech software, hoping to stop the freeway project. Seagulls working for the Council pursue them and attempt to kill Jerry by dropping a shark named Diane onto his car. Though they escape, Jerry refuses to abandon the project, believing the ordeal is an elaborate attempt by Mabel to intimidate him. Frustrated, Mabel accidentally reveals their location to both the Council and the scientists. The scientists arrive and untether Mabel from the robotic beaver, causing her to faint and leaving George confused.
Mabel awakens tied up in Sam's lab beside Jerry, where the Council has taken everyone hostage and forced the scientists to build a robotic clone of Jerry for Titus to inhabit. Titus plans to impersonate the mayor and use the sound trees' frequencies to massacre the humans attending a political rally at the glade. Realizing her anger has clouded her judgment, Mabel reconciles with Jerry, who reluctantly hops into the robotic beaver to help them escape.
At the rally, Mabel tries to reason with Titus, but he refuses to abandon his plan. Jerry, the animals, and the scientists attempt to unhop him, but the effort fails and destroys the robotic beaver. During the struggle, Mabel knocks Jerry's phone onto a sound tree and climbs it to retrieve it. She tears off Titus's robotic face, preventing him from using facial recognition to unlock the phone and activate the attack. Enraged, Titus tears down the tree and reveals his intention to have the insects exterminate every other species, horrifying the Council. The collapsing tree destroys the robotic body and sparks a wildfire that spreads across the glade toward the city. After Titus is eaten by the Amphibian King, the Council joins Mabel, George, and the other animals in dismantling the dam, flooding the glade and extinguishing the fire before it reaches the city.
Mabel and Jerry reach a compromise: the freeway is rerouted, and the glade becomes a protected wildlife preserve. Mabel graduates from college, and although the Hoppers program is discontinued because of her actions, Sam hires her as an assistant. Though they can no longer communicate verbally, Mabel and George remain friends, with George using text-to-speech software to communicate with her.
Voice cast
- Piper Curda as Mabel Tanaka, a 19-year-old animal-loving Japanese-American college student whose mind is transferred into a robotic beaver[6][7][8][9]
- Lila Liu as young Mabel[10]
- Bobby Moynihan as King George, an optimistic beaver monarch and the Mammal King[6][7][8]
- Jon Hamm as Jerry Generazzo, a greedy mayor whom Mabel is often at odds with[6][7][8][11]
- Kathy Najimy as Dr. Samantha "Sam" Fairfax,[12] Mabel's biology professor who created the hopping technology[11]
- Dave Franco as Titus (Insect King),[12] a butterfly and the Insect Queen's son who later succeeds her[11]
- Eman Abdul-Razzak as Young Titus (Insect Prince), a caterpillar[13]
- Eduardo Franco as Loaf,[12] a slow yet staunch beaver[11]
- Aparna Nancherla as Nisha,[12] Dr. Sam's astute colleague[11]
- Tom Law as Tom Lizard,[12] a lizard who prefers to avoid drama[11]
- Sam Richardson as Conner,[12] a graduate student working under Dr. Sam[11]
- Melissa Villaseñor as Ellen,[12] a big, menacing, mostly grumpy brown bear always on the lookout for her next meal[11]
- Isiah Whitlock Jr. as Bird King,[12] a goose monarch[11]
- Steve Purcell as Amphibian King,[12] a frog monarch[11]
- Ego Nwodim as Fish Queen,[12] a fish monarch[11]
- Nichole Sakura as Reptile Queens,[12] a trio of snake sister monarchs[11]
- Meryl Streep as Insect Queen, a butterfly monarch who is the most respected and feared member of the all-seeing and all-powerful Animal Council and the mother of Titus[14][12][11]
- Vanessa Bayer as Diane,[12] a great white shark assassin enlisted by the birds[11]
- Heidi Klum voices Diane (renamed to Hai-Di the Shark) in the German dub of the film[15]
- Demetri Martin as a flock of birds[16][non-primary source needed]
- Joe Spano as an elderly Beavertonian[citation needed]
- Eric Edelstein as a construction worker[17][non-primary source needed]
- Lori Alan as Mabel's mother[18]
- Karen Huie as Grandma Tanaka, Mabel's elderly grandmother who teaches Mabel to respect nature and to listen to the sounds of the forest[citation needed]
In the United Kingdom release, Alan Carr and Amanda Holden voice Alan the Squirrel and Amanda the Spider, respectively.[19]
Production
Development
In December 2020, Daniel Chong revealed on Twitter that he had returned to Pixar following the completion of his Cartoon Network television series We Bare Bears (2015–2019) and the release of We Bare Bears: The Movie (2020) and that he was developing an original feature film.[20] At the D23 fan event in August 2024, Pixar's chief creative officer Pete Docter announced that the film would be titled Hoppers.[6][7][8] Shortly after, Luca writer Jesse Andrews revealed on his Twitter account that he had been working on the film for three years.[21] Pixar revealed at D23 that Piper Curda, Bobby Moynihan, and Jon Hamm would lead the voice cast for Hoppers.[6][7][8] Development on Hoppers lasted for six years.[22]
In an interview with D23, Chong said that one of his inspirations for the film were the nature documentaries in which robot animals are placed in the animal world; "It felt like it was ripe for comedy, this idea of how humans try so hard to fit into the animal world and the weird things that happen through that." He additionally stated, "obviously there are Avatar influences, [...] But there's also this Mission Impossible spy-thriller quality to the movie too, because Mabel's kind of infiltrating the animal world."[23]
Chong initially pitched the film with penguin protagonists. However, Docter disapproved, arguing that penguins had been protagonists in several other animated films,[24][25] such as Happy Feet, Penguins of Madagascar and Vengeance Most Fowl.[25] Chong changed the protagonists to beavers after doing research on how they affect the environment; "These animals can be these ecosystem engineers and help everyone else survive; I think that just made me go, 'Oh man, beavers are crazy cool.'"[24]
Writing
In December 2024, The Hollywood Reporter stated that, according to a former Pixar artist, the filmmakers were told to "downplay" the film's "planned message of environmentalism".[26] However, in a July 2025 interview with Screen Rant, Chong denied that the film's themes were censored, stating, "If anything, I felt a lot of alignment. [...] The honest truth about the process, though, is that every movie here goes through so much iteration and changes a lot, and I can see, maybe, to some other people's eyes within the studio, [how] they might see [that] it looks like things are being censored. But, really, [the movie is] just going through its natural course of iteration and stuff–at least for our movie."[24]
Music
In August 2025, it was announced that Mark Mothersbaugh would compose the film's score, marking his first composition for a Pixar feature film after composing for the Toy Story Toons short Hawaiian Vacation (2011) and several Cars Toons shorts for the studio.[27] In addition, the film features an original end credits song written and performed by SZA titled "Save the Day", which was released on February 20, 2026.[28]
Release
Hoppers premiered at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles on February 23, 2026,[29] and was screened at the New York International Children's Film Festival on February 28, 2026,[30] which was then followed by a theatrical release in the United States by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures on March 6, 2026.[31] Internationally, the film began its rollout two days earlier in certain European and Asian countries, finishing on March 26 in Australia.[4]
Marketing
A first-look image of the film was publicly shown at the 2025 Annecy International Animation Film Festival in June 2025.[32] Later that month a short teaser, featuring a small green gecko repeatedly typing the lizard emoji into a phone, played in theaters after the end credits of Pixar's Elio.[33][34] In August 2025, Pixar revealed that the lizard's name is Tom and that he would appear in the film.[35] The character of Tom Lizard quickly went viral, and was the focus of several internet memes, which Disney reported earned up to 316 million views. A mascot of Tom Lizard was used in several appearances surrounding Hoppers, including special screenings, promotional events, and televised appearances in affiliated networks such as "photobombing" ESPN's coverage of Super Bowl LX.[36][37]
Yogurtland promoted the film with a limited edition sugar-free frozen yogurt flavor known as Mabel's Nutty Adventure.[38]
In the month of the release of the film, the free-to-play kart racing game Disney Speedstorm introduced Mabel as a racer; she was added to the game on March 6 during the mid-season of Season 18: Piston Cup.[39] Likewise, a cosmetics bundle for Fortnite, including a Tom Lizard skin, was released one day earlier.[40]
The city of Beaverton, Oregon declared March 5 "Hoppers Day" in honor of the film's release.[41] Piper Curda and Bobby Moynihan visited the city as part of the film's world tour on March 5, 2026. During the proclamation ceremony, Mayor Lacey Beaty presented the two cast members with a handmade wooden key to the city. In exchange, the actors gifted the city a custom piece of artwork created by Pixar. In addition, Beaty moderated a Q&A between the cast and students from the local school district.[42]
Home media
Hoppers was released by Disney and Pixar for digital purchase on April 28, 2026, and is scheduled to be released by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment[b] on Ultra HD Blu-ray, Blu-ray, and DVD on June 2, 2026,[43] and by Disney on Disney+ the following day.[44]
Reception
Box office
As of May 25, 2026[update], Hoppers has grossed $166 million in the United States and Canada and $221 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $386 million.[4] In the United States and Canada, Hoppers was released alongside The Bride!, and was projected to gross $40 million from 4,000 theaters during its opening weekend. The film was projected to reverse Pixar's low opening streak for its originals, overtaking the lukewarm openings of Elemental (2023), which became a sleeper hit, and Elio (2025), which became a box-office failure.[45][46] The film collected $13.2 million on its opening day, including $3.2 million from Thursday previews, which was seen as ahead of expectations.[47][48] The film proceeded to open to $45.3 million in the US and Canada and $42 million overseas for a worldwide total of $88 million, taking first place at the box office.[49] In doing so, Hoppers became the highest opening for an original Pixar film since Coco (2017), and the highest opening for an original animated film in the post-pandemic era.[45] The better-than-average performance was attributed through positive word-of-mouth and the film's release during a slow market for family films.[50]
In its second weekend, the film grossed $28.7 million, remaining in first and dropping 37%.[51] The film dropped another 37% during its third weekend, finishing in second behind newcomer Project Hail Mary, and added $17.8 million.[52] It eased a further 31% and added a further $12.2 million in its fourth.[53] In its fifth weekend, the film finished in fifth place, having dropped behind new release The Drama, and added $5.8 million for a decrease of 52%.[54]
Critical response
Hoppers received positive reviews, with critics praising its animation, story, and humor.[2] On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 94% of 222 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.7/10. The website's consensus reads: "An eager beaver for endearment that has the charm to back it up, Hoppers is a sprightly riot that might just be the funniest entry in the Pixar canon yet."[55] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 73 out of 100, based on 46 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[56] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.[57]
Several critics called the film a "return to form" for Pixar.[58] Nell Minow from RogerEbert.com gave the film 4 stars out of 4, saying the film is "Pixar at its very best. It has charm and a touch of magic but it is grounded—literally."[59] Wilson Chapman of IndieWire gave it a "B+", stating that "there's not enough time to deepen the sweet friendship between Mabel and George into something as powerful as, say, Marlin and Dory in Finding Nemo (2003). Still, what we do get is pretty uniformly delightful."[60] William Bibbiani of TheWrap felt that "Hoppers isn't just James Cameron's Avatar (2009) if it had feelings, it's also James Cameron's Avatar if it was good."[61]
Owen Gleiberman of Variety lauded the film as "top-drawer Pixar," highlighting its successful blend of a "looney-tunes" sci-fi premise with heartwarming adventure.[62] David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter gave it a positive review, calling it a "clever, funny, and visually appealing" return to vintage Pixar form that succeeds through its "proudly insane universe" and rambunctious comedic energy.[63] Lindsey Bahr of the Associated Press also gave it a positive review, calling it a "buoyant, freewheeling adventure" that, despite being distant from peak Pixar heights, serves as a "big, joyful leap in the right direction" packed with memorable characters.[64]
Alissa Wilkinson of The New York Times gave the film a mixed review, writing that while it is "not as inventive as Inside Out (2015)" and juggles an overcrowded plot, it ultimately succeeds as a "fable, really, with a science-nerd edge and some charming animal friends."[65] Carlos Morales of IGN also gave it a mixed-to-positive review, describing it as an "entertaining and admirable effort" that suffers from narrative stumbles and world-building flaws but remains anchored by a "madcap energy" and highly likable characters.[66]
Dessi Gomez of Deadline Hollywood gave it a positive review, writing that it "delivers equal parts of laughter and compassion" while praisefully comparing its narrative intersection of technology and nature to The Wild Robot (2024).[67] Katie Walsh of The Seattle Times also gave it a positive review, calling it a "charming" and "action-packed" fable that avoids drifting into sentimentality by leaning into its "weird, wacky and witty" humor without losing its heart.[68]
Possible sequel
In March 2026, during an interview with Espinof, a Spanish film website, Chong expressed interest in a potential sequel if the film is successful, saying "I love the idea of a sequel".[69]
Notes
- Distributed under the Walt Disney Pictures banner.
- A successor company of Buena Vista Home Entertainment
