Luca: Pixar Announces New Italy-Set Animated Film for 2021

July 30, 2020

Walt Disney Studios and Pixar have announced their newest animated feature titled Luca, hailing from Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Enrico Casarosa, who is known for his work on the 2011 animated short La Luna. The new Pixar film is scheduled to make its debut in the summer of 2021. This announcement comes ahead of the upcoming theatrical release of their Jamie Foxx-led animated film Soul on November 20.

Set in Italy, the animated film is being described as a coming-of-age adventure that will tell the story of a young boy named Luca as he experiences an unforgettable summer with his newfound best friend in a seaside town on the Italian Riviera. But all the fun is threatened by a deeply-held secret: he is a sea monster from another world just below the water’s surface.

“This is a deeply personal story for me, not only because it’s set on the Italian Riviera where I grew up, but because at the core of this film is a celebration of friendship. Childhood friendships often set the course of who we want to become and it is those bonds that are at the heart of our story in Luca,” Casarosa said in a statement. (via Variety) “So in addition to the beauty and charm of the Italian seaside, our film will feature an unforgettable summer adventure that will fundamentally change Luca.”

Luca will be the feature-length directorial debut of Italian filmmaker Enrico Casarosa, who has been working as a storyboard artist and writer with Pixar since 2006 on popular animated films such as Cars, Ratatouille, Up, The Good Dinosaur, Coco and Incredibles 2. The film will also be produced by Andrea Warren (Lava, Cars 3)