Concept Art From Pixar’s Scrapped Project: Newt

Pixar‘s next planned project after Toy Story 3 was Newt, but the project was recently scrapped, due to story concerns.

From Bleeding Cool:

Gary Rydstrom was a sound designer at Pixar who made the move into directing with the short film Lifted. His first feature film was set to be Newt, a romantic comedy about the last two blue-footed newts on the planet, expected to mate but finding that they hate each other.  Sadly, it seems that he could never quite get the story working, and the film was officially canceled earlier this year.

Yesterday, Pixar released thirty pieces of Newt concept art on its Facebook page.  We’ve posted our favorites below.

(Click to embiggen.)

We’re sorry that we’ll never get to see the images that this art would evolve into, but we also have a lot of faith in Pixar’s storytelling instincts.  All too frequently, modern Hollywood is willing to push ahead with a project, regardless of the actual value of the film, expecting it to succeed on the strength of its stars, the fame of the one that came before it, or the strength of its production crew.  It takes a unfortunately uncommon commitment to good storytelling to scrap a project in these stages.

According to IMDB, Pixar’s next animated project is Brave, the first Pixar movie with a female director, as well as the first with a female protagonist.  It is slated for release in 2012, so we can’t as yet say whether there will be a Pixar movie in 2011, whether something else will be released next year, or whether the resources from Newt might be poured into making Brave so that it will be released earlier.

(via Bleeding Cool.)