Hoppers is a 2026 American animated science fiction comedy film directed by Daniel Chong from a screenplay by Jesse Andrews and a story by Chong and Andrews. Produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures, the film stars the voices of Piper Curda, Bobby Moynihan, Jon Hamm, Kathy Najimy, and Dave Franco. It follows Mabel Tanaka (Curda), an animal-loving college student who transfers her consciousness into a robotic beaver to communicate with animals and save their habitat from destruction, inadvertently sparking an uprising among them.
Chong began developing Hoppers after returning to Pixar in December 2020, and the project was officially announced in August 2024. Mark Mothersbaugh composed the score, while SZA wrote and performed the end credits song "Save the Day".
Hoppers premiered at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles on February 23, 2026, and was released theatrically in the United States on March 6. The film received positive reviews from critics and grossed $389.7 million worldwide.
Plot
After attempting to free the class pets from their habitats, six-year-old Mabel Tanaka is suspended from school. Frustrated, her mother leaves her with her grandmother, who lives near a glade. Inspired by her grandmother's love of nature, Mabel develops a deep appreciation for wildlife. Thirteen years later, after her parents move away and her grandmother dies, Mabel continues caring for the glade. Beaverton's mayor, Jerry Generazzo, announces plans to route part of his beltway through it, claiming the animals have already left. Mabel, now a student at Beaverton University, unsuccessfully campaigns to stop the project.
While trying to lure the animals back, Mabel discovers that her biology professor, Dr. Sam Fairfax, and colleagues Nisha and Conner have secretly developed the "Hoppers" program, which allows humans to inhabit robotic animals. Ignoring Sam's warning about interfering with wildlife, Mabel hops into a robotic beaver and escapes the lab.
Mistaken for a real beaver, Mabel is brought before Mammal King George, who shelters the glade's displaced animals in an overcrowded dam. She discovers Jerry has installed an artificial tree that emits sound waves audible only to animals, driving them away. After Mabel destroys the tree, animals return to the glade. As she grows closer to George, she prepares to reveal her identity, but Jerry destroys part of the glade with explosives and installs more sound-emitting trees.
Mabel and George convene the Animal Council, whose members include the monarchs of the insects, fish, amphibians, reptiles, and birds. Though initially indifferent, the Council agrees to help after Mabel warns that Jerry will eventually threaten all of their habitats. However, her speech instead inspires them to assassinate him. While trying to dissuade them, Mabel accidentally kills the Insect Queen, a monarch butterfly. She and George escape as the animals destroy the robotic bodies Nisha and Conner used to spy on the meeting, exposing the humans' deception. The Insect Queen's son, Titus, crowns himself king and assumes control of the Council.
Although initially upset by Mabel's recklessness, George agrees to help protect Jerry. Joined by Loaf the beaver, Tom the lizard, and Ellen the bear, they locate Jerry and force him to drive to the glade in hopes of stopping the project. Seagulls working for the Council attempt to kill him by dropping a shark named Diane onto his car, but the group escapes. When Jerry still refuses to abandon the beltway, an angry Mabel reveals their location to both the Council and the scientists. They arrive and unhook her from the robotic beaver, causing her to faint and revealing her identity to George.
When Mabel awakens, the Council has taken everyone hostage and forced the scientists to build a robotic clone of Jerry for Titus to inhabit. Titus plans to impersonate the mayor and use the sound trees to massacre the crowd attending Jerry's re-election rally at the glade. Before leaving, Titus condemns Mabel for stealing the technology, deceiving the animals, and using them for her own goals, while Jerry also calls her out for provoking the conflict. Realizing her obsession with saving the glade had only worsened the situation, Mabel chooses to reconcile with Jerry, who reluctantly hops into the robotic beaver to help her escape.
At the rally, Mabel fails to persuade Titus to abandon his plan. Jerry, the animals, and the scientists attempt to unhop him, but the effort fails and Titus destroys the robotic beaver, which causes Jerry to be unhopped. During the struggle, Mabel climbs a sound tree to retrieve Jerry's phone after knocking it into the branches. She tears away the 3D printed latex mask covering Titus's robotic face, preventing him from using facial recognition to unlock the phone and activate the attack. Enraged, Titus tears down the tree and reveals his plan to have the insects exterminate every other species, turning the Council against him. The falling tree destroys the robot and ignites a wildfire that spreads toward the city. After Titus is eaten by the Amphibian King, the Council joins Mabel, George, and the other animals in dismantling the dam, flooding the glade and extinguishing the fire. An ant queen succeeds Titus as the new Insect Queen.
Jerry reroutes the beltway, and the glade is designated a protected wildlife preserve. Mabel graduates from college, and although the Hoppers program is discontinued because of her actions, Sam hires her as an assistant. Mabel and George remain friends, communicating through text-to-speech software.
Voice cast
Piper Curda as Mabel Tanaka, a 19-year-old animal-loving Japanese-American college student whose mind is transferred into a robotic beaver Lila Liu as 6-year-old Mabel Bobby Moynihan as King George (Mammal King), an optimistic beaver monarch Jon Hamm as Jerry Generazzo, the greedy Mayor of Beaverton whom Mabel is often at odds with Kathy Najimy as Dr. Sam Fairfax, Mabel's biology professor who created the Hopper technology Dave Franco as Titus (Insect King), an evil butterfly and the Insect Queen's son who later succeeds her Eman Abdul-Razzak as Young Titus (Insect Prince), a caterpillar Eduardo Franco as Loaf, a slow yet staunch beaver Aparna Nancherla as Nisha, Dr. Sam's astute colleague who later uses a Rabbit Hopper Tom Law as Tom Lizard, a lizard who prefers to avoid drama Sam Richardson as Conner, a graduate student working under Dr. Sam who uses a Heron Hopper twice Melissa Villaseñor as Ellen, a big, menacing, mostly grumpy brown bear always on the lookout for her next meal Isiah Whitlock Jr. as Bird King, a goose monarch Steve Purcell as Amphibian King, a frog monarch Ego Nwodim as Fish Queen, a fish monarch Nichole Sakura as Reptile Queens, a trio of snake sister co-monarchs Meryl Streep as Insect Queen, a villainess butterfly monarch who is the most respected and feared member of the all-seeing and all-powerful Animal Council and the mother of Titus Karen Huie as Grandma Tanaka, Mabel's deceased grandmother, who taught her to respect nature and listen to the sounds of the forest when she was young Vanessa Bayer as Diane, a fearsome yet friendly great white shark assassin enlisted by the birds Heidi Klum voices Diane (renamed Hai-Di) in the German dub of the film Joe Spano as an elderly Beavertonian
The following roles were credited under additional voices: Lori Alan as Mrs. Tanaka, Mabel's mother Eric Edelstein as a construction worker Demetri Martin as a flock of birds and a worm
In the United Kingdom release, Alan Carr and Amanda Holden voices A Squirrel and A Spider, respectively.
Production
Development In December 2020, Daniel Chong stated on Twitter that he had returned to Pixar following the completion of his Cartoon Network television series We Bare Bears (2015–2019) and the release of We Bare Bears: The Movie (2020), and that he was developing an original feature film. At the D23 fan event in August 2024, Pixar's chief creative officer Pete Docter announced that the film would be titled Hoppers. Shortly after, Luca writer Jesse Andrews stated on his Twitter account that he had been working on the film for three years. Pixar announced at D23 that Piper Curda, Bobby Moynihan, and Jon Hamm would lead the voice cast for Hoppers. Development on Hoppers lasted for six years.
In an interview with D23, Chong said that one of his inspirations for the film were the nature documentaries in which robot animals are placed in the animal world; "It felt like it was ripe for comedy, this idea of how humans try so hard to fit into the animal world and the weird things that happen through that." He additionally stated, "obviously there are Avatar influences,... But there's also this Mission Impossible spy-thriller quality to the movie too, because Mabel's kind of infiltrating the animal world." Additionally, Chong has cited Isao Takahata's Pom Poko as a major influence on Hoppers; saying in an interview upon the latter's release, "I think I kind of knew it right away that we needed something like that. What we call it internally with ourselves was it's a two world kind of rule where there's like the human point of view and there's an animal point of view. So we always knew we wanted that. And I think we took a lot of cues from Pom Poko, the movie from Studio Ghibli, which does something similar. Obviously the plot's very different, but the idea that you could showcase two different versions of the animals, and yet the audience understands we're talking about the same animal."
Chong initially pitched the film with penguin protagonists. However, Docter disapproved, arguing that penguins had been protagonists in several other animated films, such as Happy Feet, Penguins of Madagascar, and Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl. Chong changed the protagonists to beavers after doing research on how they affect the environment; "These animals can be these ecosystem engineers and help everyone else survive; I think that just made me go, 'Oh man, beavers are crazy cool.
Writing In December 2024, The Hollywood Reporter stated that, according to a former Pixar artist, the filmmakers were told to "downplay" the film's "planned message of environmentalism". In a July 2025 interview with Screen Rant, Chong denied experiencing censorship, stating, "If anything, I felt a lot of alignment", adding that "The honest truth about the process, though, is that every movie here goes through so much iteration and changes a lot, and I can see, maybe, to some other people's eyes within the studio, they might see it looks like things are being censored. But, really, just going through its natural course of iteration and stuffat least for our movie." [modifications in original]
Music
In August 2025, it was announced that Mark Mothersbaugh would compose the film's score, marking his first composition for a Pixar feature film after composing for the Toy Story Toons short Hawaiian Vacation (2011) and several Cars Toons shorts for the studio. In addition, the film features an original end credits song written and performed by SZA titled "Save the Day", which was released on February 20, 2026.
Release Hoppers premiered at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles on February 23, 2026, and was screened at the New York International Children's Film Festival on February 28, 2026, which was then followed by a theatrical release in the United States by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures on March 6, 2026. Internationally, the film began its rollout two days earlier in certain European and Asian countries, finishing on March 26 in Australia.
Marketing