Disney and Pixar have released the first trailer for Hoppers. Written and directed by Daniel Chong (We Bare Bears), the forthcoming animated film stars Piper Curda as Mabel, an animal lover who jumps at the chance to “hop” human consciousness into lifelike robotic animals, letting people talk to animals by becoming one themselves.

Plus, we get to talk to Chong about the upcoming film, how his childhood influenced it, that Avatar name drop, the needle drops we can expect to hear, and how this film originally had penguins as the lead.

In the Hoppers trailer, we are introduced to Mabel (Curda), a bright, animal-loving student at Beaverton University who works alongside a team of eccentric scientists in a hidden research lab. The lab is cluttered and outdated, as noted by the clunky computer monitors and dusty file cabinets. However, the lab houses a revolutionary technology that builds robotic animals for the sole purpose of interacting seamlessly with wildlife.

Mabel learns the scientists have developed a way to upload human consciousness into these robotic animals, providing unprecedented access to the animal world. Initially skeptical, Mabel compares it to Avatar, though the scientists quickly reject the comparison. Driven by curiosity, Mabel tests the technology on herself and wakes up in the body of a robotic beaver in the wild.

Accompanied by Missy Elliott’s “Lose Control,” the trailer showcases the vibrant ecosystem and introduces a laid-back beaver who fully accepts his position in the food chain. When a bear threatens to eat a beaver named Loaf, Mabel intervenes, only to be met with confusion.

In a humorous exchange, Loaf and the hungry bear question why Mabel would interfere. Loaf explains it’s simply “pond rules,” and even offers himself as a meal, only for the bear to awkwardly decline, saying, “It’s weird now.”

The trailer concludes with the Hoppers’ title card and a final comedic scene, in which we see the first frantic scientist warning Mabel, who is still inside the beaver robot, not to use the technology to disrupt the natural order. Mabel, wearing a Bluetooth headset, mischievously hangs up on the scientist, as a colleague exclaims, “She found the button.”

With its playful humor, vibrant world-building, and a soundtrack that promises some surprising needle drops, Hoppers looks like a wildly fun ride. We had a chance to speak to Chong about the upcoming film, from transitioning from a more grounded, relationship-driven story like We Bare Bears to a big-screen nature adventure, to the wild concept of mind-hopping into a robotic beaver. We also talked about flipping familiar tropes on their head, the joy of a well-placed Missy Elliott track, balancing pop culture references with original humor, telling culturally specific stories with universal appeal, and, of course, what animal Chong himself would most like to voice.

Chong has always been interested in the ways humans and animals coexist. While We Bare Bears played on that concept, Hoppers is a chance for him to expand upon that idea at Pixar.

“Yeah, I mean, I would say We Bare Bears was definitely a good training ground to prep for the process of making a movie up here,” Chong said. “There are definitely similar themes in both movies. It’s about animals and humans coexisting and trying to figure out how those two bump up against each other and deal with each other.”

“I think for this movie, it was really taking that theme to a bigger scale and how do all the animals think of humans, and how do they interact with humans, and how do humans deal with them, and the forces of tension between the two,” Chong added. So I think that it’s a natural step for me, it seems, but I’m starting to feel a theme in my work.”

While the idea of humans coexisting with animals in a playful manner seems to be a recurring theme in Chong’s work, the concept of humans observing animals in their natural habitat originated from an unexpected source. “There are these documentaries that are really funny. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen these documentaries, but people put these robot animals into animal worlds to kind of like spy on them,” he said. “You have cameras in their eyes or something like that. So that was kind of the jumping off point.”

Chong says the documentation of an animal robot that looks nothing like the subjects they are studying was part of the fun. “A lot of times it’s really janky, and you’re like, ‘there’s no way animals will buy this. They don’t look anything like them,'” he said. “But I think it’s having fun with the ways humans try to infiltrate the animal world and fail, sometimes, that really got me excited and felt really funny and weird. And then, obviously, there’s an Avatar quality to it.”

Chong adds that Avatar is much more than a name drop; it helped inspire the idea of hopping into another vessel. In this case, Mabel willingly transfers her mind into the robot beaver. While the trailer highlights this aspect, it also suggests that it is nothing like that at all. That’s when the movie segues into something unexpected. “It kind of goes into a spy thriller, espionage movie,” he said. “On top of that’s also a broad comedy. So what’s exciting to me is that we can have all these different things in this movie, and they can kind of coexist. And I think that’s what’s going to be the fun ride for people.”

But finding that balance between the sci-fi aspects of mind transferring, watching animals in their natural state, plus the added comedy, spy thriller, and espionage, can be a lot to take on. According to Chong, striking that balance is one of the reasons this movie took five years to make. He credits the team that worked on the film for making it possible. “I think if I were to answer that in the most simplest terms, we are just chasing entertainment and fun as much as possible,” he said.

For Chong, the guiding principle always came back to the audience experience. “How do we thrill the audience? How do we shift expectations? How do we throw curveballs?” he said. “That, more than anything, guided the writing process. And obviously, comedy is always number one for me — making sure the characters are fun and funny, and that people are laughing. Those are the things that really drive the movie. But the boring answer is… it took five years.”

The trailer teases the harsh reality of the animal world, including the brutality of the food chain. Alpha predators, such as bears, have to eat smaller animals, like beavers. So, for Mabel, an animal lover inhabiting a beaver robot, disrupting that natural order leads to a surprising discovery: one laid-back beaver is perfectly content with his place in the food chain.

“We were very cognizant that we were reversing the savior story and the human savior in this this situation,” Chong said. “To me, the comedy is like the animal world, it’s mysterious and it is weird, and there are a lot of things we don’t understand, and animals are intelligent, but in ways that we will never really completely know or fully grasp.”

Despite the extensive observations and documentation we’ve made, Chong says we still don’t know everything about animal behaviors. “I think that there is something just funny inherently in that of miscalculation, and that contrast,” he said. “So I think the humor and the weirdness that we’re willing to explore is going to be what will feel really original and different in our movie. And, yeah, I think that’s what we had fun with.”

While Pixar isn’t known for having needle drops in their films, Hoppers throws in Missy Elliot’s “Lose Control,” a banger of a track that seems to fit the vibe of the trailer and ultimately the film itself. However, it’s something that he didn’t initially come up with. “I don’t want to take credit for that. That was the Disney team,” he said. But the thing that we did talk about when we were talking about the marketing was we wanted to make sure that we had a song that matched both the comic and the crazy nature of what the movie is.”

And Chong wanted to reflect the film’s unpredictable energy. “You want to reflect the tone of the movie, and I encouraged them — what can we do? What is the song? Because I think no matter what, there was going to be a needle drop in it, but what is something unexpected and something that people will throw people almost like, Oh, my God, what? And I, because that is what the movie feels like when you watch it.”

It wasn’t until “the Disney people came back with that song, and we were like, ‘hell, yeah, that’s it. You got it. And it’s such a great, it’s great on so many levels’.” As a ‘90s kid, Chong says hip hop and R&B are his thing, and those beats are all over We Bare Bears as well. “They matched me, personally, perfectly,” he said. “I think that was a joy to see them put into the teaser, and I’m glad it’s representing our movie.”

Chong says to expect “lots of needle drops in our movie.”

When it came to weaving in clever pop culture winks while keeping the story grounded in its own world, Chong says it all comes down to balance. “You want to be tongue-in-cheek in the right places. You want to be a little meta in certain areas, but not so much that it pulls the audience out,” he said. “The metric for whether you’ve gone too far is whether the emotion still holds up. That’s what really tells you if the audience is invested and if they’re still connecting on an emotional level.”

You could easily tell a joke or kind of break the fourth wall or do something a little too overly clever that can take people out of the movie, and suddenly they don’t believe in the world or the stakes of the world anymore. They don’t believe in the character anymore,” Chong said. “So a lot of that, again, is trial and error, and that’s the five-year part of making this movie.”

Chong says that trial and error is just a part of the Pixar process. They also test internally and with test audiences to see what works. Ultimately, all those things helped them “find the sweet spot.”

For Chong, that sense of balance isn’t just about genre or tone. It also extends to how his own identity informs the story. As an Asian American filmmaker, he’s mindful of how cultural specificity can be woven into a story without feeling forced or over-explained.

“I grew up in America. I was born here, and I grew up with parents who were immigrants,” Chong said. “They definitely raised me in Asian ways, but I wanted desperately to fit in and be an American and fit in with all my other friends who are not Asian, that’s kind of what [We Bare] Bears is about, and so I’m still navigating that question and how does that show up in my work, and how do I reflect it?”

“I will say there’s a part of me, though, that always feels like if there are Asian parts of the movie, I do like the idea that it also doesn’t stand out in a way that, you know, feels like it’s screaming itself out,” Chong adds. I always have seen my Asianess of really just fitting into the fabric of American culture in a very seamless way. And I think a lot of my characters kind of feel that way too, even Mabel.”

It’s a question Chong admits he’s still exploring. “It’s something I still think about a lot. I don’t really know the answer, but part of it is that these characters just sit in the world. They don’t necessarily yell themselves out.”

Just as Chong wanted the story to feel authentic to his own experiences without overexplaining, that same approach carried over to casting. For him, it was about finding performers who could bring genuine personality, heart, and wild comedic energy to the characters. In the film, he has Curda voicing Mabel, our hero and animal lover, who protects a habitat from the greedy Mayor Jerry (Jon Hamm). Chong also reunites with Bobby Moynihan, with whom he worked for three seasons of We Bare Bears.

“One of the things, just as a bar for us, was our whole cast just had to be really funny, and we just had to find people who could be, who could do really crazy comedic things with their performances,” Chong said.

One of the actors they were lucky with was Hamm. According to Chong, Hamm was “kind of this really cool anomaly where he can play very slick and suave and authentic and smooth, but he can also play crazy, wild, unhinged and out of control comedy.”

“He’s really brave in that regard. He is not afraid and has no ego about playing a character that also can be very weak and very timid,” Chong said about Hamm. “He was just hilarious and has done so many crazy things for this movie. I think people will be really surprised by what we got Jon Hamm to do, or what he was willing to do.”

“Working with Piper, who plays Mabel, she’s a wild presence unto herself and hilarious, but she is also very sweet and charming and lovable, and so she, you know, I think will be a very fun, unpredictable character,” Chong said about working with Curda.

Reuniting with Moynihan was especially meaningful for Chong. “It’s just incredible to get to work with someone that I already knew. We already know he’s hilarious. We know he’s very sweet, and we know he can do those things, but for me personally, just being able to work with someone I already knew in a process like a Pixar movie that was so big, it was just a blessing to get to reunite with him.”

Considering Chong had previously directed The We Bare Bears Movie — which featured Toy Story 4 director Josh Cooley as a painting elephant with Bob Ross hair — and that Pixar is home to figures like Peter Sohn, who’s voiced everything from Remy the rat in Ratatouille to Sox the robotic cat in Lightyear, and Domee Shi, director of Turning Red, I asked Chong what animal he’d like to voice if given the chance.

“I’ll tell you, this movie actually started out as a penguin movie,” Chong said. “I really wanted to tell a penguin story, but then Pete Docter said, ‘I don’t think the world needs another penguin movie.’”

Chong laughed. “He’s probably right. But if I had the chance, I’d still love to voice a penguin. I don’t think that would be a terrible thing.”

Hoppers opens in theaters on March 6, 2026.