Disney Pixar has always been seen as the gold standard for animation, but right now, it feels like they are standing at a major crossroads. Even though they just had a win with the original comedy Hoppers and everyone expects Toy Story 5 to crush it at the summer box office, the path ahead is not as clear as it used to be.
The studio has definitely hit some rough patches lately. Films like Lightyear and Elio did not quite live up to the massive expectations we usually have for Pixar. On top of the box office struggles, the company has been stuck in the middle of some pretty heated cultural debates, which seems to have led to a bit of an identity crisis. With all that uncertainty, it is not surprising that the higher-ups are being way more cautious about which projects actually get the green light.
Just this week, The Hollywood Reporter released an expose uncovering details about a scrapped Pixar project titled Be Fri (pronounced "Best Friend"). The unreleased film has drawn massive comparisons to Netflix’s K-Pop Demon Hunters, which recently took home the Oscar for Best Animated Feature.
According to the report, Be Fri was in development for years under director Kristen Lester, known for helming Pixar's 2019 short Purl. The story followed two teenage girls who find out their favorite Sailor Moon style anime is actually real, leading them on a universe-spanning adventure.
A former Pixar employee, speaking anonymously to The Hollywood Reporter, revealed that Be Fri went through four full iterations based on studio feedback. And it was when the project was reportedly right on the edge of the animation stage that Disney finally pulled the plug.
According to the Pixar alum, the trouble peaked after "Braintrust 3," Pixar's internal name for the third of six major check-ins with studio leadership and focus testers. Following a meeting where Disney expressed dissatisfaction with the film's direction, the creative team made a desperate last-ditch effort to save it.
"There was a meeting after BT3 where Kristen and Blaise made the case to Disney: ‘We know you don’t like where the film is at right now. Give us six weeks, and we’ll redo the entire film,’" the staffer recalled.
The team, including director Kristen Lester, Blaise Hemingway, and Nick Sung, reportedly worked around the clock, seven days a week, to reformat the entire story. In an industry where preproduction and storyboarding usually take a full year, they managed to compress a fourth version of the film into just six weeks. Despite that Herculean effort, it wasn't enough to keep the project alive.
The former staffer, who wasn't in the room for the feedback but heard the details from those who were, was reportedly floored by the final footage the Be Fri team managed to pull together. They noted that the quality was right on par with Hoppers, making Disney’s decision to pass even more confusing. The former staffer noted:
“It was on Hoppers’ level. It befuddles me why they passed on it, but with each round of notes, Disney just didn’t feel like little boys could see themselves in the film enough. Basically, Disney reps were like, ‘We can’t have a girl power movie.'”
It is a pretty shocking move, especially when you look at Pixar’s recent wins. Inside Out 2 focused entirely on female leads and ended up becoming the highest-grossing animated movie of all time. Add that to the huge success of Turning Red on Disney+, and the idea that "girl power" is a financial risk feels completely out of touch with reality.
What is even more confusing is Disney’s own track record. While the studio has been known to shy away from LGBTQ+ themes in its big features, they have basically built their empire on female-led, girl power stories. Just a few recent examples include the live-action The Little Mermaid, Wish, and Moana 2.
So either the staffer is exaggerating what went wrong with Be Fri, and is perhaps injecting their own personal feelings and theory as to why Disney pulled the plug on it, or Disney is undergoing a strange and sudden pivot in strategy. Although Lightyear and Elio were seemingly "boy"-focused and released around the same time as Be Fri was canceled, I have a hard time believing Disney would suddenly ignore the exact formula that has kept them at the top of the box office for decades.
If you’ve been on social media lately, you might have seen a rough version of selected scenes floating around. These clips hint at the tension between the lead characters before cutting to a high-stakes sequence where they’re being chased by an angry demon.
“The comparisons to KPop Demon Hunters are pretty undeniable because there were musical aspects to it, and it was a rip-roaring time,” said the former Pixar staffer who worked on scrapped movie. “I can imagine that whoever at Disney denied Be Fri to exist looks at KPop and is kicking themselves like, ‘Sh*t, I can’t believe Netflix is doing exactly what we wanted to do.'”
While Disney might be kicking itself for canceling Be Fri, there is no guarantee it would have reached the same heights as K-Pop Demon Hunters. We are talking about the kind of generational success that only happens once in a blue moon. It is easy to look back and wonder what if, but K-Pop Demon Hunters became a massive cultural phenomenon on its own terms. Even with Pixar's polish, catching lightning in a bottle like that is never a sure thing, no matter how great the footage looked during those early screenings.
While the cancellation may have come during a time when Pixar was undergoing an identity crisis, I have a hard time believing it was strictly due to Disney not wanting "girl power" in a movie. It just doesn't add up when we have seen the studio embrace so many other successful female-driven films.