A few years back, Pixar was working on a film called Newt. The premise was about the last remaining male and female blue-footed newts on the planet who are forced together by science to save the species, but they can’t stand each other. Sound familiar? The film was scrapped after being too similar to Blue Sky Animation’s Rio. I think Pixar could have done more with the premise, but I guess we’ll never know. The best we’ll probably get are leaked pieces of concept art. We saw some back in 2010, and now more has been released online. It’s a great look, but sadly, most concept art for 3D movies tends to get watered down (remember how Tangled was supposed to resemble the artistic style of French Rococo artist Jean-Honore Fragonard’s painting “The Swing”?). Either way, it’s an interesting look at a film that never was.
Hit the jump to check out the concept art.
Via Bleeding Cool.
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Was real bummed when this got dropped. Rio was surprisingly great but a Pixar-equivalent with a blue-footed lizard sounds so so awesome. I’m sure he would’ve made a cute character.
The premise certainly sounds a little too familiar. But that art looks gorgeous! I’m sorry they couldn’t figure out something to do with the concept — probably like most young kids (boys, anyway) I was fascinated by amphibians and the world they inhabited. Seeing this movie back then would have been awesome beyond belief — like watching a real world version of Avatar.
So instead we got Cars 2, Brave, and Monsters University
Awesome
This probably got canceled so they could make another stupid Cars movie.
When I saw “The Princess and the Frog,” I thought the premises were also very similar — a couple of amphibians who can’t stand each other lost in the wilderness while they slowly fall in love. If I’m not mistaken, even the release dates would have been close. I couldn’t care less about “Rio,” and I think Disney screwed up the whole “first POC princess” thing by having her turned into a frog for most of the film. If given the chance, I believe “Newt” could have been a great film, and totally better than TPATF and “Rio.”