Pixar’s “What if the dinosaurs had never died?” feature The Good Dinosaur was hit with its own extinction-level event two years ago, when director Bob Peterson was moved off the project in favor of longtime Pixar artist and first-time director Peter Sohn. The impact of the metaphorical asteroid slammed the movie backwards, shifting it from its original release date in summer of 2014 to Thanksgiving of this year. At the time, it wasn’t clear if the previously announced cast of The Good Dinosaur, which included Frances McDormand, Neil Patrick Harris, and Bill Hader, would survive the blast; the movie’s teaser trailer, released last week, skirted the question by relying on onscreen text.
But now it’s been revealed that life, in this particular case, could not find a way. Deadline reports today that The Good Dinosaur has been completely recast, with the new actors including Jeffrey Wright, Steve Zahn, Anna Paquin, and Sam Elliott, who will presumably be playing the only T-Rex in history so awesome he was able to grow a mustache without mammalian DNA. The titular acceptable reptile, Arlo, will be played by voice actor Raymond Ochoa, and the young cave-boy orphan he teams up with by Jack Bright. (Pixar seems to be sticking with its usual policy, also seen with Jordan Nagai in Up and Spencer Fox in The Incredibles, of hiring kid-aged voice actors to play its younger protagonists.)