Hoppers

Hoppers (2026)

Timing: 1:44 (104 min)

8.128/10
1253

7.779/10
18502

7.6/10
15000

All about film

Video 122

Photo 219

Actors and characters

Release date

2026-03-04

Country

United States

Production

Pixar

Genre

Family, Comedy, Animation, Science Fiction, Drama, Adventure

Budget

$150 000 000

Revenue

$371 953 089

Website

https://www.pixar.com/hoppers

Director

Daniel Chong

Actors

Piper Curda, Bobby Moynihan, Jon Hamm, Kathy Najimy, Dave Franco, Eduardo Franco, Aparna Nancherla, Tom Law, Sam Richardson, Melissa Villaseñor
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Producer

Nicole Paradis Grindle, Pete Docter, Peter Sohn, Kiri Hart, Domee Shi, Lee Unkrich

Operator

Jeremy Lasky

Composer

Mark Mothersbaugh

Artist

Audition

Kevin Reher, Natalie Lyon, Kate Hansen-Birnbaum

Editing

Axel Geddes
All team (126)

• Initially, it was envisioned as a film about a human consciousness inside a robotic penguin. When director and screenwriter Daniel Chong presented the script to Pixar executives, specifically Pete Docter (who became one of the producers), the management liked the script. They only suggested replacing the penguins in the concept with something else, stating that there were already too many animated films about penguins. The script was rewritten twice more until it was finally decided that the robot would be a beaver instead of a penguin. Additionally, Chong discovered that beavers act as a kind of ecosystem engineer and decided that a movie about a beaver would be a hit.
• The final film of Isaiah Whitlock Jr. The film is dedicated to his memory.
• One of the characters was based on Meryl Streep (although none of the filmmakers expected her to take on the voice role). According to director and screenwriter Daniel Chong, he finally called her via video chat to discuss the matter, and Streep was very receptive to the proposal to work on the project.
• The filmmakers brought in a beaver specialist from the University of Minnesota as a consultant. They first contacted her in 2021.
• The character voiced by Piper Curda is based on the mother of director and screenwriter Daniel Chong, who, according to him, had a very strong sense of duty.
• According to director and screenwriter Daniel Chong, he once came across an article about Yellowstone National Park, where wolves were being reintroduced to the wild and beavers were present in the ecosystem.
• The character voiced by Bobby Moynihan was based on director and screenwriter Daniel Chong. He has admitted himself that "a great deal of this character is taken from me personally."
• In the original concept of the film, the character voiced by Tom Lowe did not exist. According to Daniel Chong, this character "somehow slipped into the storyline on its own" and remained there, despite there being no urgent need for him. The conclusion that the character was popular with the audience was reached based on the results of preview screenings.
• According to director and screenwriter Daniel Chong and producer Nicole Paradis Grindle, the visual difference between the animal and human worlds (specifically referring to the animals' eyes) was inspired by the 1994 Studio Ghibli anime titled "Pom Poko," which focused on tanuki. It was this project by director Isao Takahata that helped the creators convincingly depict the concept of the coexistence of two worlds.
• At the very last moment, the opening scenes were significantly altered. New dialogue and additional footage were added to further develop the story of the main character, voiced by Piper Curda. According to director and screenwriter Daniel Chong, this was necessitated by the protagonist's own nature—unbridled and somewhat chaotic. It was necessary to add more humanity to Mabel's image so that the audience would empathize with her, understand her feelings, and specifically her anger, as well as the reasons behind the struggle she is waging.
• According to director and screenwriter Daniel Chong, he drew inspiration, in particular, from old educational wildlife documentaries.
• In one of the scenes, the blue birds from the short film "The Birds" (2000) can be seen on screen. This is a tribute to the short film's director, Ralph Eggleston, who passed away from pancreatic cancer on August 28, 2022, while this project was in production.
• Towards the end of the film, an image of the robot from Andrew Stanton's sci-fi animated movie WALL-E (2008) can be seen in the office of the character voiced by Katie Najimi.
• In early versions of the film, Mabel (voiced by Piper Curda) did not have a grandmother. She was conceived and added to the script to provide more volume and depth to the main character's image. According to producer Nicole Paradis Grindle, this decision was made when audiences openly disliked the scene where Mabel yells at Jerry (voiced by Jon Hamm). Everyone decided she was "yelling too much," so the filmmakers added the grandmother and several new scenes to soften that impression.
• The character voiced by Katie Najimi wonders if sound can be converted into energy. This same question is central to the Monsters, Inc. franchise.
• An "easter egg" can be spotted on the chalkboard of the character voiced by Katie Najimi. It is a reference to the Cars franchise. In the top right corner of the board, there is a diagram—a human brain with an arrow pointing to a car. It seems to imply a human consciousness inside a car.
• Old horror films also influenced the creators—for example, "The Birds" (Alfred Hitchcock, 1963), "The Exorcist" (William Friedkin, 1973), and "Gremlins" (Joe Dante, 1984). They created the project's frightening final scenes under the influence of these and several other films. Due to children's reactions during preview screenings, not all the horror elements originally intended by the filmmakers were included in the final cut.
• The creators of the robot beaver strove to ensure that all of their creation's movements looked natural.