First Soul Trailer Reveals Next Pixar Film That’ll Likely Break Your Heart

In Pixar’s vast stable of excellent writers and directors, few so reliably break your heart as Pete Docter. The man behind Monsters, Inc., Up and Inside Out is now back with a new feature, Soul, and it looks like it has Docter’s winning formula of humor, heart, and intelligence.

Soul is centered on middle school band teacher and jazz lover Joe Gardner (Jamie Foxx) whose dream has long been to become a real jazz musician. When Gardner gets his big break to play at a swanky jazz club, it seems his big break has finally come. Then he takes one wrong step, and his dreams of becoming a jazz musician are put on hold; possibly for eternity.

While the trailer gives you just a little taste of what’s to come, there’s little doubt that Soul will be making us cry in the theater next summer.

Check out the trailer below. Soul hits theaters on June 19, 2020.

Here is the official synopsis and details from Pixar:

Directed by two-time Academy Award®-winner Pete Docter, co-directed by Kemp Powers and produced by Academy Award®-nominee Dana Murray, Disney and Pixar’s “Soul” opens in theaters on June 19, 2020. According to Docter, the idea for the story is 23 years in the making. “It started with my son—he’s 23 now—but the instant he was born, he already had a personality,” says Docter. “Where did that come from? I thought your personality developed through your interaction with the world. And yet, it was pretty clear that we’re all born with a very unique, specific sense of who we are.”

“Soul” introduces Joe Gardner, a middle-school band teacher whose true passion is playing jazz. “I think Joe is having that crisis that all artists have,” says Powers. “He’s increasingly feeling like his lifelong dream of being a jazz musician is not going to pan out and he’s asking himself ‘Why am I here? What am I meant to be doing?’ Joe personifies those questions.”

In the film, just when Joe thinks his dream might be in reach, a single unexpected step sends him to a fantastical place where he’s is forced to think again about what it truly means to have soul. That’s where he meets and ultimately teams up with 22, a soul who doesn’t think life on Earth is all it’s cracked up to be. Jamie Foxx lends his voice to Joe, while Tina Fey voices 22. “The comedy comes naturally,” says Murray. “But the subtle emotion that reveals the truth to the characters is really something special.”

Featured image: L-r: Joe Garnder (Jamie Foxx) and 22 (Tina Fey) in Disney-Pixar’s Soul. Courtesy Disney/Pixar.