Disney/Pixar’s acclaimed Coco is a huge box office hit in Mexico, and has had a strong weekend opening worldwide, but you wouldn’t know that in Australia… for some reason the ad buy has been more or less nonexistent. It opens for sneak previews in Melbourne this week and next, and generally in Australia on Boxing Day. Catch it if you can! Via Vanity Fair:
It’s one thing to find inspiration for a Día de los Muertos–themed film while walking through the Mexico Pavilion at Disney World’s Epcot, another to turn that spark into an authentic Pixar film for the masses. Lee Unkrich came up with the idea for Coco, the animation studio’s 19th feature film—out on Thanksgiving—after spotting a papier-mâché mariachi band comprised of skeleton musicians in a theme-park exhibit. “I’ve long been interested in Día de los Muertos,” said the Toy Story 3 director. “It is an odd juxtaposition of skeletal imagery with bright colors and festivities and joyfulness.”
But getting the green light gave Unkrich pause. “I immediately felt this weight on my shoulders of the responsibility to get this story right and to be culturally accurate and respectful,” he said. To start, Unkrich insisted on an entirely Latino cast—featuring Gael García Bernal, Benjamin Bratt, and newcomer Anthony Gonzalez, who has been playing mariachi music since he was four years old—and hired a team of cultural consultants, for whom Pixar screened versions of the film every few months. Unkrich and his creative team also took multiple trips to Mexico for research and inspiration—visiting with families on the early November holiday and touring museums, markets, plazas, workshops, churches, and cemeteries in Mexico City, Oaxaca, and Guanajuato.
“We absorbed details in every place that we visited, but the most valuable thing was the time we spent with Mexican families,” said Unkrich. “Every one of them was kind and open and excited to share their traditions with us. A lot of the details from those visits ended up being a part of Coco.”