When Finding Nemo released in 2003, it became Pixar’s biggest ever box office hit (over $900 million worldwide). After nearly a decade of classics, Toy Story 3 is the only Pixar film to beat that personal best. Next week, the film’s first sequel, Finding Dory, releases in theaters for another gorgeous underwater adventure, and the movie is projected to have a record breaking opening with anticipation for a Pixar film at an all time high.
The first film saw a clown fish named Marlin (Albert Brooks), teaming up with a regal blue named Dory (Ellen DeGeneres) to find his lost son, Nemo (Alexander Gould). Unfortunately, Dory is prone to short-term memory loss, and struggles to overcome her handicap in order to be helpful in the endeavor. The new film sees Dory on a quest to find her lost family, voiced by Diane Keaton and Eugene Levy, and brings in newcomers Fluke (Idris Elba) the sea lion and Destiny (Kaitlin Olson), a blue whale shark and Dory’s childhood friend.
Courtesy of Yahoo comes a minute-long clip from the new film (above), which sets up the inciting incident: Dory remembering her parents and wanting to set out on a journey to find them. Marlin, who was reluctant to leave his home reef in the first movie, is again less than enthusiastic about going on an adventure.
Dory has always been one of the more tragic heroes in the Pixar canon, and revealing the family she forgot makes her story all the more heartbreaking. Pixar has never been one to shy away from tough topics, and though Dory’s condition is sometimes played for chuckles, the upsetting reality of her short-term memory loss underlies much of the drama in the first film. It looks like Finding Dory aims to double down on this.
It’s a bit disheartening to see Marlin being such a stick-in-the-mud in this clip, saying, “The only reason to travel in the first place is so you don’t have to travel ever again.” Hopefully the next minute of the film shows Marlin being put in his place, since the actual reason Dory traveled with him in the first place was to reunite him with his son. Then again, the film isn’t called “Marlin and Dory’s Second Exciting Journey Together,” so that’s probably not the case. Additionally, since many of the Finding Dory trailers show the regal blue on an adventure of her own within the confines of an aquarium, it’s safe to say she separates from Marlin and Nemo at some point.
Will Finding Dory meet expectations and prove to set further box office records for Pixar? Will it fall prey to the 2016 sequel curse that’s plagued films like The Huntsman: Winter’s War, Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows?
Finding Dory (along with the new Pixar short, Piper) hits U.S. theaters June 17th, 2016.
Source: Yahoo!
