This summer has been something of a dream for Pixar, on the Inside Out front. After a rocky few years, the animation studio has bounced back in a huge way with its follow-up to the 2015 favourite – which has become the biggest film of 2024 by a considerable distance, and earned the title of the highest-grossing animated movie of all time. (The debate over whether Jon Favreau’s entirely-CG photoreal Lion King adaptation should count as animation or not rumbles on.) And so, it’s no surprise then that Pixar is presenting more from the Inside Out-verse – and heading into dream territory, no less.
At Disney’s D23 Expo, Pixar boss Pete Docter unveiled a brand new project: Disney+ streaming series Dream Productions, set in the world of Inside Out. The show will explore the running of the dream factory inside young Riley’s mind – a concept introduced in the first Inside Out. The four-episode series takes place between the events of Inside Out and Inside Out 2, with Docter describing it on stage as “an inbetween-quel”. It's due in 2025.
Since the ‘Dream Productions’ gag in Inside Out was such a winner, there’s clear potential here. And it’s obvious that audiences can’t get enough of experiencing what goes on in Riley’s head. We’ll see what Dream Productions has in store next year – in the meantime, we’re just going to rest our eyes for a minute and drift off into a reverie about what the series might involve.