The Hollywood Reporter Gives Details Into The Scrapped Pixar Animation Studios Film "BeFri".
The Hollywood Reporter made an article on the scrapped Pixar film "BeFri", according to the article the film got scrapped by Disney executives rather than Pixar Animation Studios themselves.
"BeFri" was originally revealed by The Wall Street Journal during a March report in how Pixar has been struggling with original ideas in the 2020s. The Hollywood Reporter recently sat down with anonymous Pixar employees about what happen during the development of this film and according to them Pixar heads never pulled the plug in the movie. It was Disney themselves beacuse higher up Disney execs thought "We just didn’t feel like little boys could see themselves in the film enough."
TWSJ mentioned that one of the excs that watched one test screening of the now canceled film was former The Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Iger.
"BeFri" was going to be helmed by Kristen Lester (Sparkshorts "Purl"), Blaise Hemingway (Paramount Pictures "Clifford the Big Red Dog") and Nicholas C. Smith. The film was set to focus on two teenage girls Birdie and Jules, two girlie besties that have always been best friends for who knows how long, but that long-lasting bond is put at risk when a squad of magical powerful women invite Jules to join their team, seeing her potential and of course Birdie won't allow this, but eventually the two obviously go through a breakup and either are unwaveringly free (hence "befri/be free") or have to reunite somehow, while a dastardly Hope Eater lurks to ruin and destroy everything.
Be Fri was inspired by Lester’s real-life experience involving an adolescent friendship that dissolved. According to the former Pixar employee, "BeFri" went through four iterations after various sets of notes from Disney higher-ups and would have been ready for the animation stage when Disney opted to pull the plug.
After the film's cancelation in June, 2023, the studio held what amounted to a funeral for Be Fri at the studio. They had a little place where you could put notes or things that were really special to you. There was art all over the place that was really memorializing the film. Over the past 12 months, the animated feature to have earned the most buzz was undoubtedly KPop Demon Hunters, which originated at Sony Pictures Animation but skipped theaters and debuted on Netflix through the studio’s first-look deal with the streamer. It isn’t lost on the former Pixar staffer who worked on Be Fri that the Netflix movie, which is the platform’s most watched title ever and beat out Elio to win this year’s animated feature Academy Award, has similar themes to the now-canceled Pixar project.
"The comparisons to KPOP: Demon Hunters are undeniable because there were musical aspects to it. I can imagine whoever at Disney denied BeFri to exist looks at KPop's sucess at Netflix and is kicking themselves like ‘Sh*t, I can’t believe Netflix is doing exactly what we wanted to do." -- Anonymous Pixar employee
According to THR, Pixar’s team has reason to be optimistic about the state of its originals. "Hoppers" directed by Daniel Chong has surpassed $330 million at the global box office, giving hope to future originals like next year’s "Gatto" directed by "Luca" director Enrico Casarosa and "Ono Ghost Market" (Director TBA) slated for 2028.
