Did Rio Stop Pixar’s Newt Being Made?

I love Pixar films with a passion, though I have to admit I’m a bit disappointed about the amount of sequels they are currently releasing (Toy Story 3, Cars 2, Monsters Inc 2). So last year when I found out they were cancelling one of the original films they had in the works, Newt, I was very upset. The official premise for that film was...

“What happens when the last remaining male and female blue-footed newts on the planet are forced together by science to save the species, and they can’t stand each other? Newt and Brooke embark on a perilous, unpredictable adventure and discover that finding a mate never goes as planned, even when you only have one choice. Love, it turns out, is not a science.”

Sounds amazing right? This concept with the story-telling ability of Pixar in charge, I think it would have been brilliant. The fact that we’ll never see this “potential” masterpiece is pretty frustrating, but I got over it. Until yesterday... when I went to see Rango and saw the trailer for Rio...



Are you kidding me? The similarities in the two stories are ridiculously close, in fact if you change the words “blue-footed newts” with “blue-feathered birds” in the premise detailed above you could easily be talking about Rio. So after a little research on the internet, it would appear that Newt was actually cancelled due to the similarities with Rio. Great.

I appreciate Pixar probably wanted to avoid a similar situation like when “A Bug’s Life” and “Antz” were released. But I would have much rather seen this story/concept bought to the big screen from the creators of “WALL-E” and “Up” rather than the creators of “Ice Age”.
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