Just about a year ago, we learned that The Good Dinosaur lead director Bob Peterson would be stepping off the project, leaving co-director Peter Sohn at the helm (though a new lead director has yet to be confirmed by Pixar). Shortly thereafter, Pixar announced that The Good Dinosaur would be delayed from a May 30, 2014 release to November 25, 2015, and with that delay would come to a hefty storyline change – and possible role changes as well. In a recent interview with Collider (via /Film), John Lithgow says:
I recorded the entire role in Good Dinosaur. They have now dismantled it and completely reimagined it, and it is a fantastic new story. So I’m gonna record again on it within the next month. Don’t worry. It’s coming and it’s gonna be better than I ever imagined.
John Lithgow
As Lithgow stated the entire film is being “completely reimagined”, the original storyline asked the question what if the cataclysmic asteroid that forever changed life on Earth actually missed the planet completely and giant dinosaurs never became extinct? The film followed an Apatotosaurus family as Arlo (the teenage Apatosaurus) befriends a young human boy named Spot.
During the interview when asked about looming role changes Lithgow answered “…me and Frannie McDormand, we’re still playing Momma and Poppa dinosaur.” This confirmation has us excited about the new story but also wondering if Bill Hader, Judy Greer, Lucas Neff and Neil Patrick Harris characters have made the cut and are still in the film. While this is only speculation as we do not have confirmation from Pixar of any role/character changes we can only add that we are excited to see what The Good Dinosaur will bring us late next year and what the reimagined story will be.
Be sure to share your thoughts on the Pixar Post Forum – thanks to forum user maxxie03 for spotting this and posting it to the forum.
AWESOME. I'm beyond excited about the news/update. I honestly got goosebumps when I read ** \”Don’t worry. It’s coming and it’s gonna be better than I ever imagined.” ** whaaaaaat?! 🙂 so cool.
I know, that was very refreshing and exciting to read that for sure!
I have a bad feeling about this…. Yeah sure, they are telling us to not worry but they can't tell us: We changed the story and it sucks…. the previous version was better. But I'm being skeptical, It seems we have to wait until November 2015 to find out.
Yeah, that makes sense – I know that Pixar certainly isn't going to say that the new version is worse than the old version – but the only reason I feel a little better about this is because it was John Lithgow saying it when he was being casually asked about it. I'm sure that Pixar told him about the problems and why they wanted him to come back in with excitement in their voice…but to me, it's exciting to hear that the project is still on and that he's at least pleased with the changes (as an actor rather than a Pixar employee). Also – I'm just happy to hear that the project is still on and that it's not \”Newted\” <—- That'a new verb I'm using to describe canceled projects! 🙂