Grow (film)

Grow would be a 2029 American computer-animated science fiction road buddy film directed by Pete Docter from an screenplay by Docter and Meg LeFauve. Produced by Pixar Animation Studios and distribuited by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, the film would star the voices of Tom Hiddleston, Chris Hemsworth, Madeleine McGraw, Ming-Na Wen and John Ratzenberger. The film would focus on two brothers who try to help an alien baby return home.

Development on Grow would start in early 2025, with Docter set to direct the film. Hiddleston and Hemsworth would be cast to voice the lead roles in mid-2026, with the rest of the cast joining during 2027. The animators would use the technology used on Docter's Monsters Inc. (2001) and WALL-E (2008) in order to create the film's characters and settings. John Williams would compose the film's score.

Grow would be released on July 16, 2029, and would become a critical and financial success. Critics would praise the film's themes, writing, directing, vocal performances (particularly Hiddleston and Hemsworth's), and animation. The film would gross 817 million dollars at the worldwide box office over a budget of 130 million dollars.

Synopsis
In San Francisco, lived the two sons of a great scientist: Christian, the mature and responsible older brother, and Thomas, the younger brother who, in spite of his age, refuses to mature. The brothers' lives take an unexpected turn when an alien ship carrying a baby runs off energy and crashes near their house. Not knwing what else to do, the brothers chose to recharge the ship and return the baby to her home. While being guided there by a care-free bounty hunter, the brothers try to take care of the baby while facing the dangers in the universe, and Thomas realizes he has to face the hard truth: In order to take care of the baby, he has to mature.

Voice cast

 * Tom Hiddleston as Thomas, a young man with an immature and mischieving personality, who dosen't want to mature, in spite of his age. Hiddleston would say that "he dosen't have the Peter Pan syndrome. He just dosen't like maturing, he fears it. He geniunaly cares for his brother, and has a magical and whimsical view of the world, and fears that, if he matures, he may lost all that".
 * Chris Hemsworth as Christian, a young an and Thomas' mature and responsible older brother, who tries to convince Thomas to mature.
 * Madeleine McGraw as Chubby, a trouble-making alien baby whom Chrisitan and Thomas struggle to take care of while trying to return her to her home planet.
 * Ming-Na Wen as Gunner, a care-free alien bounty hunter who agrees to take Christian and Thomas to Chubby's home planet. Wen would describe the character as "the devil on Thomas' shoulder, but also a character in her own right".
 * John Ratzenberger as M.A.C, Chubby's ship's malfunctioning A.I. system, with a wise-cracking personality.

Music
John Williams would compose and conduct the film's score. Williams would compose an score that could serve as "the middle point" between his scores for Hook and the Star Wars franchise, as he the score to "capture both the tone and setting of the film". He would compose a theme for Thomas that could be "both immature and mischieving, and suprisingly deep and emotional", while his theme for Christian would be "the opposite of Thomas'". Williams would describe his theme for Gunner as "very space-like, very care-free, but with an edge".

Reception
On Rotten Tomatoes, Grow would have an approval rating of 97%, with an avergae ratong of 8.7/10, based on 216 reviews. The website's critical consensus would read, "Another win for Pixar, Grow is a visual spectacle whose voice-acting and brilliant script deal with theme of maturing in a surpisingly deep and emotional way". On Metacritic, the film would have a weighted rating of 81 out of 100, based on 50 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".

Trivia

 * Pete Docter and Meg LeFauve previously co-wrote the screenplay for Pixar's Inside Out (2015), which Docter also directed.
 * Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston previously worked together on the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
 * Several cast members previously worked on the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Hemsworth and Hiddleston potrayed Thor and Loki in several MCU projects, Madeleine McGraw previously played a young Hope Van Dyne in Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018), and Ming-Na Wen plays Melinda May in the television series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2013-2020).
 * The Pizza Planet truck would appear at the start of the film, as Christian and Thomas talk to each other while walking at the streets of San Francisco.
 * The number A113 would be seen in a sign in Chubby's ship, which would indentify it as being a "model A113". It would also appear when the ship detects a black hole, to which the compute would show an archive saying "protocol A113" in order to instruct what to do.
 * The Luxo Ball, as well as WALL-E and EVE from the 2008 Pixar film WALL-E, would appear as some of Chubby's toys.