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Pixar Animation movies famously go through a lot of changes from the moment they are greenlighted. It’s no surprise, as it’s a long process to even make the movies, ranging from anywhere from four to seven years. The studio’s latest, Hoppers, was a six-year passion project for director Daniel Chong before it became one of the most successful 2026 movie releases. When CinemaBlend sat down with a couple of the movie’s filmmakers, they revealed one memorable scene that (shockingly) wasn’t even in Hoppers until late in its development. And they can thank Pixar fans for the assist.
Hoppers revolves around Mabel, a teenage Japanese-American college student who’s passionate about nature and animals. It’s certainly not the norm for a Pixar film to follow a human near-adult, but that was part of the movie from the jump. As Hoppers’ lead story artist Margaret Spencer told us ahead of the movie’s streaming release:
I think [director Daniel Chong] always really wanted Mabel to be young and scrappy and unrelenting. And I think it was really important to him that she was a female character, also. I don’t know, it just was always part of the movie from the very beginning.
OK, so Mabel pretty much stayed the same age and personality from the inception of Hoppers. That’s cool and all, but here’s the juicier bit the film’s story supervisor John Cody Kim told us.
Yeah, and she was a very nature-loving character. But the thing is, we didn’t really have the beginning of the movie where we see Mabel as a little girl rescuing all these animals from the school. And so we had to put that in almost at the last minute. And all of a sudden, the audience started to care about Mabel more.
I mean, can you believe we almost didn’t see little Mabel? The scene we’re talking about is at the very top of the movie–but minimal spoilers are in the next couple of sentences. We see Mabel steal all the class pets in her school before getting caught. Her parents then lecture her about her behavior. The scene transitions into a cute moment between Mabel and her grandma where she asks her to listen to the sound of nature. It’s the perfect introduction to the character, and it’s hard to believe it only came at the last minute.
Even more important for context? The scene was added after screening early versions of the film. The audience had thoughts about Mabel, and the scene was added after the animators took feedback. The screening thing is not unusual. Pixar is known to screen its films while they are in the middle of working on them via a peer review forum called the Braintrust, which is in and of itself, very cool.
There were plenty of other ways Hoppers changed throughout its lengthy production period. Chong first pitched it as more of a “Mission: Impossible spy thriller” and the character of Jerry was more of a “cold cut” antagonist before the filmmakers made some changes to Jon Hamm’s character later on. But this tidbit is the perfect morsel as the movie heads to streaming.
Hoppers just leaped its way onto TV screens for those with a Disney+ subscription, it’s the perfect time for a rewatch. I know I’m definitely going to appreciate the opening scene even more knowing that it was a late addition to the movie.
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