Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios have set a summer 2023 release date for Elemental.
The animated feature based on director Peter Sohn’s childhood in New York will hit theaters on June 16, 2023. Produced by Denise Ream (The Good Dinosaur, Cars 2), Elemental journeys alongside an unlikely pair, Ember and Wade, in a city where fire, water, land and air residents live together.
The fiery young woman and the go-with-the-flow guy are about to discover something elemental: how much they actually have in common. Disney and Pixar also released concept art (above) for the original film from Sohn.
“My parents emigrated from Korea in the early 1970s and built a bustling grocery store in the Bronx. We were among many families who ventured to a new land with hopes and dreams — all of us mixing into one big salad bowl of cultures, languages and beautiful little neighborhoods. That’s what led me to Elemental,” the native New Yorker said in a statement.
Sohn also discussed using the basic elements — fire, water, land and air — to animate his feature film. “Some elements mix with each other, and some don’t. What if these elements were alive?” he said.
Sohn directed The Good Dinosaur in 2015 for Pixar and the Partly Cloudy short.