Coming our way a few months after this Summer’s Inside Out, the road to the big screen has been a rocky one for Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur, set in world were the dinosaurs never went extinct and followed the adventures of a young dinosaur and his human pet (watch the first teaser here). It was originally set to be released last year, conceived and directed by Up co-director Bob Peterson, but he subsequently removed from the film. Pixar then upgraded co-director Pete Sohn, and completely re-vamped the story, causing the shift unreels date to November of this year.
Now, another wrinkle has presented itself, with Pixar announcing an all new voice cast. Gone are Lucas Neff, Bill Hader, Neil Patrick Harris, Judy Greer, and John Lithgow (a pretty amazing cast if you ask me), with only Frances McDormand remaining. You have to believe that they would have recorded most or all of their dialogue at this stage, so the mind boggles at why the change at this stage, with five months to go. The new cast breaks down as follows:
Raymond Ochoa (The Night Shift) provides the voice of an Apatosaurus named Arlo.
Jeffrey Wright (The Hunger Games: Catching Fire) was tapped as the voice of Poppa, Arlo’s father.
Steve Zahn (Rescue Dawn) provides the voice of a pterodactyl named Thunderclap.
AJ Buckley (Justified) voices a T-Rex called Nash.
Anna Paquin (X-Men) is the voice of T-Rex Ramsey.
Sam Elliot (Justified) was called on as the voice of a tough T-Rex named Butch.
Frances McDormand (Fargo) was tapped as the voice of Momma, Arlo’s mother.
Marcus Scribner (black•ish) voices Arlo’s brother Buck.
Jack Bright (Monsters University) provides the voice of Arlo’s unlikely human friend, Spot.
This isn’t unheard of when it comes to Pixar (Reese Witherspoon was originally meant to be Merida in Brave), but replacing your entire cast with a little over five months to go till release? It boggles the mind, but it could point to the changes Sohn and co. has made to Peterson’s original concept, and their dedication to getting things right. Either way, things don’t look too good for The Good Dinosaur right now, but hopefully we’re pleasantly surprised come November.
Released: 25th November (U.S.)/ 27th November (IRL/U.K.)
