Pixar’s new original film Hoppers hits Disney+ June 3 with robot beavers, Meryl Streep as an insect queen, and Daniel Chong’s signature weirdness.
Pixar Hoppers is about to become your summer’s most rewatchable obsession, and you won’t even need to leave your couch. The studio’s latest original—about a 19-year-old activist who transfers her consciousness into a robotic beaver to save her grandmother’s forest—lands on Disney+ June 3, 2026, which means you can experience all the weirdness, warmth, and Meryl Streep from the comfort of your own home.
Daniel Chong, who created We Bare Bears and clearly has a thing for animated animals navigating human society, makes his feature directorial debut with a film that sounds like it was pitched during a fever dream. Mabel Tanaka, played by Piper Curda, discovers a technology called “hopping” that lets humans inhabit robot animal bodies. She uses it to infiltrate the animal kingdom and stop a corrupt mayor from building a highway through her grandmother’s land. Along the way she meets a beaver king who loves 80s pop rock and group aerobics, a butterfly villain, and Meryl Streep as an insect queen who channels Miranda Priestly energy while ruling over her six-legged subjects.
Pixar Hoppers and the Art of Letting Directors Be Weird
Pixar Hoppers represents a genuine departure for the studio, which has spent the last few years leaning heavily on sequels and safer bets. The animation style is deliberately simpler and more rounded than recent Pixar efforts—think plush toys come to life rather than photorealistic fur rendering. There’s a clever visual trick where animals look detailed and expressive from their own perspective but have blank, beady eyes when humans look at them, which is the kind of subtle storytelling device that separates Pixar from studios still figuring out how to make CGI hair look convincing.
The voice cast is stacked with comedy ringers. Jon Hamm plays Mayor Jerry, the antagonist whose smarmy political machinations somehow gain surprising depth as the story progresses. Bobby Moynihan voices King George, the beaver monarch whose optimism is tested by increasingly absurd circumstances. Dave Franco plays the Insect King with calculating ambition. And Melissa Villaseñor appears as a grizzly bear who just wants to eat, which is honestly the most relatable character description I’ve ever read.
What makes Pixar Hoppers special is its refusal to sand down its edges. The film accepts that animals eat each other, that nature is brutal and beautiful simultaneously, and that environmental activism sometimes requires getting your hands dirty—or in this case, your robot beaver paws. Chong’s We Bare Bears DNA is all over this: the cringe comedy, the found-family dynamics, the fundamental belief that creatures who should be enemies can become friends if they just communicate.
The theatrical run established the film’s credentials, but Disney+ is where Pixar Hoppers will find its real audience. Kids will rewatch it until parents can recite every line. Adults will pause to catch background jokes about the food chain. And everyone will cry at least once, because this is still Pixar, and Pixar has a contractual obligation to destroy your emotions before the credits roll.
Stream Pixar Hoppers on Disney+ starting June 3 and discover why robot beavers are the future of animated storytelling.