“Inside Out 2”, the latest release from Disney and Pixar, has become South Africa’s highest-grossing film of 2024.
The animation production was released in theatres worldwide in June.
It is voiced by a star-studded cast, which includes Amy Poehler, Maya Hawke, Kensington Tallman, Liza Lapira, Tony Hale, Lewis Black and Phyllis Smith.
They are joined by Ayo Edebiri, Lilimar, Grace Lu, Sumayyah Nuriddin-Green, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Diane Lane, Kyle MacLachlan, Paul Walter Hauser and Yvette Nicole Brown.
Disney explained that the movie continues to dominate the global box office too, with an estimated $1.217 billion, making it the fifth biggest animated release of all time globally, after just four weekends.
The sequel to the 2015 family comedy brings audiences back into the mind of the lead character, Riley Andersen (Tallman), who deals with a host of new emotions as a teenager in “Inside Out 2”.
In the first movie, she was an 11-year-old who was uprooted from her happy and simple life in Minnesota and taken to San Francisco, California, where she experiences various changes in her life.
“‘Inside Out 2’ returns to the mind of newly minted teenager Riley just as Headquarters is undergoing a sudden demolition to make room for something entirely unexpected: new emotions,” Disney said in a media statement.
They added that: “Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust, who’ve long been running a successful operation by all accounts, aren’t sure how to feel when Anxiety, Envy, Ennui and Embarrassment show up.”
“Inside Out 2” is directed by Kelsey Mann, who is no stranger to the world of animation.
He started his career at Cartoon Network, where he worked as a storyboard artist on “Duck Dodgers”, “Megas XLR”, “My Gym Partner's a Monkey”, “Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends” and “Star Wars: The Clone Wars”.
Mann then joined Pixar in 2009, where he started as a story supervisor for “Monsters University”, “Onward” and “The Good Dinosaur”, where he also co-wrote the story for the film.
He made his directorial debut with the short film “Party Central”, which he also wrote, taking place shortly after “Monsters University”.
Meanwhile, “Inside Out 2” was produced by Mark Nielsen and executive produced by Pete Docter, Jonas Rivera and Dan Scanlon.
The film features a screenplay by Meg LeFauve and Dave Holstein and story by Mann and LeFauve, with music by Andrea Datzman.
∎ “Inside Out 2” is showing in cinemas nationwide.