USA Today has a sneak peak of Lou, the new Pixar short that will be attached to Cars 3. According to the report, the short is directed by Dave Mullins and brings toys back to the forefront of Pixar’s filmmaking.
The short is described as one which an unseen creature in a school’s lost-and-found bin helps teach a bully a lesson. The creature has baseballs for eyes, wears a red hoodie, and watches the playground form his home inside the Lost and Found box. When a kid named J.J. terrorizes the domain Lou oversees, our protagonist decides it is time to take matters into his own hands.
Most Pixar projects come from someplace personal, Mullins says, and his idea came from feeling out of place during his childhood because he moved around a lot.
In an interview Mullins said, “You either feel invisible because you don’t know the other kids or you’re embarrassed and you want to be invisible. I thought it’d be really cool to have a character who could hide in plain sight.”
“They’re usually just acting out because they’re awkward or young and don’t have their moral compass set. In a weird way, the bullies sometimes feel invisible, too,” Mullins says. “If you can find out what their motivations are, maybe you can solve some things.
“That’s what I like about Lou: True happiness comes from giving,” the director says. “He gets J.J. to understand that and through that, what J.J. wants really is to be accepted by the other kids.”
Mullins, who has been with Pixar since 2000 dedicated the short to his dad. Since his father was a football fan and Dave was a skater boy, you can see the combination of their two loves you can find both a football and a skateboard inside Lou’s box.
Lou and Cars 3 will be released June 16, 2017.