Inside Out 2 facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Inside Out 2
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Kelsey Mann
Produced by	Mark Nielsen
Screenplay by	Meg LeFauve Dave Holstein
Story by	Kelsey Mann Meg LeFauve
Starring	Amy Poehler Maya Hawke Kensington Tallman Liza Lapira Tony Hale Lewis Black Phyllis Smith Ayo Edebiri Lilimar Grace Lu Sumayyah Nuriddin-Green Adèle Exarchopoulos Diane Lane Kyle MacLachlan Paul Walter Hauser
Music by	Andrea Datzman
Cinematography	Adam Habib Jonathan Pytko
Editing by	Maurissa Horwitz
Distributed by	Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Release date(s)	June 10, 2024 (2024-06-10) (El Capitan Theatre) June 14, 2024 (2024-06-14) (United States)
Running time	96 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$200 million
Money made	$724.4 million

Inside Out 2 is a 2024 American animated coming-of-age film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. The sequel to Inside Out (2015), it was directed by Kelsey Mann (in his feature directorial debut) and produced by Mark Nielsen, from a screenplay written by Meg LeFauve and Dave Holstein, and a story conceived by Mann and LeFauve. Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith, Lewis Black, Diane Lane, and Kyle MacLachlan reprise their roles from the first film, with Maya Hawke, Kensington Tallman, Tony Hale, Liza Lapira, Ayo Edebiri, Lilimar, Grace Lu, Sumayyah Nuriddin-Green, Adèle Exarchopoulos, and Paul Walter Hauser joining the cast. The film tells the story of Riley's emotions as they find themselves joined by new emotions that want to take over Riley's head.

First announced in September 2022 during the D23 Expo, Inside Out 2 features Pixar chief creative officer Pete Docter's "five to 27 emotions" idea from the first film that Mann pitched during its production to utilize "truthful" worldbuilding.

Inside Out 2 premiered at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles on June 10, 2024, and was released in theaters in the United States on June 14. The film received positive reviews from critics and has grossed $724 million worldwide. It had the third-biggest domestic opening weekend for an animated film, and is the highest-grossing film of 2024.

Plot

Two years after her move to San Francisco, Riley, now 13, is about to enter high school. Her personified emotions—Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger and Disgust—have since created a new section of Riley's mind called "Sense of Self", which houses memories and feelings that form Riley's beliefs. Joy, intending to fill the Sense of Self with only positive memories, has also invented a mechanism that launches any negative memories to the back of Riley's mind. Riley and her best friends Bree and Grace are invited to a weekend ice hockey camp where Riley hopes to qualify for her school's team, the Firehawks. On the night before the camp, a "Puberty Alarm" sounds off, and a group of mind workers barge into Headquarters to upgrade the emotion console.

The emotions discover that Riley wildly overreacts to any inputs they make to the console. Four new emotions also arrive at Headquarters and introduce themselves: Anxiety, Envy, Embarrassment, and Ennui. Though initially friendly, the new and old emotions clash over their approaches; in particular, Joy thinks Riley should focus on having fun at the camp, while Anxiety wants Riley to win a spot on the team and make new friends, especially since Riley has learned that Bree and Grace will be going to a different high school.

While being led by Joy, Riley inadvertently causes the other campers to be collectively punished twice by the camp's strict director, Coach Roberts. Feeling that Riley needs to change her personality to fit in with the older players, Anxiety dumps the Sense of Self into the back of Riley's mind and has the old emotions captured and thrown into a memory vault. She and the other new emotions then use negative memories to create a new, corrupted Sense of Self and encourage Riley to make friends with popular hockey player Val Ortiz, straining her friendship with Bree and Grace. The old emotions escape the vault and split up; Sadness uses a recall tube to return to Headquarters while the others go to the back of Riley's mind to retrieve her old Sense of Self.

Sadness makes it back but is unable to prevent Riley from sneaking into Coach Roberts' office to read her notebook. Discovering that Coach does not consider Riley ready to become a Firehawk, Anxiety determines to take further control over her. The old emotions make it to the back of Riley's mind and get her Sense of Self from the top of a mountain made up of the bad memories deposited by Joy's mechanism. With no other way to get back in time, they cause an avalanche of bad memories and ride it back to Headquarters; however, the memories spill into Riley's Sense of Self, corrupting it further. Anxiety is shocked to discover that, despite her intentions, her cultivation of the new Sense has caused it to evolve into one of self-doubt, leading to her frantically controlling Riley during a crucial hockey game. This results in her hogging the puck, missing most of her shots, and accidentally hurting Grace, getting her sent to the penalty box. Horrified, a frenzied Anxiety swarms the control console in a blinding whirlwind, causing an overwhelmed Riley to suffer a panic attack.

The old emotions finally return to Headquarters, and Joy convinces Anxiety that she does not need to make Riley change herself to have a better future. Anxiety relents and the original Sense of Self is reinstalled, but Riley's attack persists. After the repentant Anxiety admits that she cannot determine who Riley is, Joy realizes that the same, likewise, applies to her. She removes the first Sense of Self again, allowing a new, complex, and varying Sense to form from Riley's positive and negative memories. Together, the emotions embrace and stabilize this third Sense, finally allowing Riley to calm down and reconcile with Bree and Grace. Now in full control of her emotions for the first time, Riley actively calls for Joy to take command and finishes the game smiling.

Sometime later, Riley attends high school and becomes friends with Val and the other Firehawks while staying true to herself and maintaining her friendship with Bree and Grace. At lunch, she and the team wait around her phone for Coach to post the list of new Firehawks recruits. Now living in peace, the first and second generations of emotions work together to protect Riley's forever-changing Sense of Self. In the final scene, Riley checks her phone to see if her name is on the list and looks at herself in the mirror with a proud smile.

Voice cast

Additionally, television personality Sam Thompson cameos in the UK version of the film as Security Man Sam, a character who finds himself on a chase with the emotions.

Production

Development

After the success of Inside Out, the seventh-highest-grossing film of 2015, Entertainment Tonight and The Guardian considered a sequel to be "inevitable." Inside Out director Pete Docter was germinating ideas for a sequel while the original film's nominations were unveiled at the 88th Academy Awards in January 2016. Development on the story began in early 2020 and Pixar officially confirmed the sequel's development during the D23 Expo announcement in September 2022, with Amy Poehler coming on stage to discuss the film alongside Docter. Kelsey Mann was announced as the director of the sequel (making it his feature directorial debut), with Mark Nielsen producing, while Meg LeFauve was announced to write the film's screenplay, returning from its predecessor.

To utilize "truthful" worldbuilding, Mann used Docter's "five to 27 emotions" idea from the first film that he pitched during its production. Mann's first pass included nine new emotions to make Joy feel overwhelmed with all the new emotions showing up, but felt that the story could not keep track with so many emotions taking the spotlight or not adding to the story, so after the first screening he decided to simplify the number. Among those emotions was Schadenfreude (having joy at someone's expense), Jealousy and Guilt, but the latter two influenced the film despite being removed, with Mann feeling that Envy could relate to Jealousy and how remnants of Guilt could be found within Anxiety's introduction, even giving Anxiety some of Guilt's baggage, which was inspired by that of Disneyland hotels.

Research and writing

The production team frequently consulted author and clinical psychologist Lisa Damour and used her books as guidance on accurately portraying how teenagers emotions change during puberty. Professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, Dacher Keltner, who helped on the first Inside Out, returned as a consultant as well. Keltner played a key role in selecting which emotions should be introduced in the story. A character based on the emotion of shame was intended to be a part of the film but was axed, in part due to Keltner contesting that shame was not an emotion.

To assist with the development of the film, Pixar enlisted a group of nine teenagers, who were dubbed "Riley's Crew", to provide feedback on the film to ensure it accurately portrayed modern teenage life. Their input led to the inclusion of the emotion Nostalgia and influenced various scenes, including everyday elements of the emotions' lives and the transition from middle school to high school. Nielsen and Mann were also inspired by their own daughters when crafting the film. As development on the story began during lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the two were able to gather personal research from studying their children, some of whom were Riley's age in the film. Their perspective as parents helped in shaping the film and characterizing the emotions, especially Joy.

Initially, the plot of the film was to involve a talent show, but that idea ended up being scrapped. After about three test screenings, Nielsen, Mann, and LeFauve decided it was best to center the story on Riley playing hockey, as they felt it was a unique aspect of her character. The decision was also influenced by input Mann received from Turning Red director Domee Shi when he asked how to make the film unique from other teenage coming-of-age stories, including her own. The scene where the old emotions are locked in a vault was originally longer but was trimmed down as several gags were cut out due to time constraints.

Casting

Poehler accepted an offer of $5 million with lucrative bonuses to reprise her role as Joy from the first film. Phyllis Smith and Lewis Black also reprise their roles from the first film, voicing Sadness and Anger, respectively. Following a dispute over pay, both Bill Hader and Mindy Kaling declined to reprise their respective roles as Fear and Disgust; they and the rest of the returning cast were reportedly offered $100,000 each, equivalent to two percent of Poehler's salary. On November 9, 2023, with the release of the teaser trailer, it was revealed that Tony Hale and Liza Lapira would replace Hader and Kaling as Fear and Disgust, respectively, while Maya Hawke joined the cast as Anxiety, a new emotion. Mann auditioned Hawke via Zoom at the office of a back room in Epcot during a family vacation with his kids after Nielsen told him that Hawke was available to audition just then, with her anxious performance driving him to tears. On January 16, 2024, it was revealed that June Squibb had joined the cast in an undisclosed role, later revealed to be Nostalgia.

On March 7, 2024, Disney revealed that Ayo Edebiri, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Paul Walter Hauser, Kensington Tallman, Diane Lane, and Kyle MacLachlan joined the cast, with Edebiri, Exarchopoulos, and Hauser playing the other new emotions, Envy, Ennui, and Embarrassment, respectively. In addition, Tallman replaces Kaitlyn Dias as Riley Andersen, while Lane reprises her role as Mrs. Andersen, and MacLachlan also reprises his role as Mr. Andersen. John Ratzenberger reprises his role as Fritz, marking his first voice role in a Pixar film since Onward. Also joining the cast in supporting roles are Lilimar, who plays a hockey player named Valentina, and Yvette Nicole Brown, who plays the coach of the hockey team, while Sumayyah Nuriddin-Green and Grace Lu play Bree and Grace, Riley's friends.

Music

On March 7, 2024, with the release of the second trailer, it was reported that Andrea Datzman had composed the film's score, taking over for Michael Giacchino. This made Datzman the first woman to score a Pixar feature film. The soundtrack album was released by Walt Disney Records on June 14, 2024, the same day as the film.

Release

Inside Out 2 premiered at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles on June 10, 2024, and was released in theaters in the United States four days later, with screenings in RealD 3D, IMAX and Dolby Cinema. It also screened at the 2024 Annecy International Animation Film Festival that same day.

Marketing

The teaser trailer for the film, along with the poster, was released on November 9, 2023. James Withbrook of Gizmodo and Inverse's Rotem Rusak highlighted the introduction of three other emotions in the poster: Embarrassment, Ennui, and Envy. The teaser was viewed over 157 million times in the first 24 hours across all social media platforms—including over 78 million from TikTok—becoming the most-watched animated film trailer launch in the Walt Disney Company's history, surpassing the previous record holder, Frozen II (2019). A clip from the film was also aired during the Super Bowl LVIII, named "Team". The second trailer, along with a new poster, was released on March 7, 2024. This trailer also marked the debut of the "standard" variant of the 2023 Walt Disney Pictures logo, which was introduced the year before for the studio's centennial anniversary. The first 35 minutes of the film were screened during The Walt Disney Studios' presentation of first looks at their 2024 theatrical release slate at CinemaCon on April 11, 2024. As part of a partnership with Airbnb, a new rental home in Nevada just outside of Las Vegas modeled after "headquarters" in the film was listed on the website beginning June 12, 2024.

See also

In Spanish: Inside Out 2 para niños