Finding Dory is a 2016 American animated adventure comedy film directed by Andrew Stanton, and written by Stanton and Victoria Strouse. Produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures, the film is both a sequel and spin-off following the events of Finding Nemo (2003). Ellen DeGeneres and Albert Brooks reprise their roles from the first film, with Ed O'Neill, Kaitlin Olson, Hayden Rolence (replacing Alexander Gould), Ty Burrell, Diane Keaton and Eugene Levy joining the cast. The film focuses on the amnesiac fish Dory (DeGeneres), who journeys to be reunited with her parents (Keaton and Levy).
Disney planned to make a sequel to Finding Nemo since 2005, tasking its new studio Circle Seven Animation after disagreements with Pixar. Though it never went into production, a script was uploaded to the official Raindance Film Festival website that includes elements of the unmade script. Disney's acquisition of Pixar in early 2006 led to the cancellation of Circle Seven's version of the film. A Pixar-made sequel was announced in April 2013 as the schedule for a November 2015 release. The fictional Marine Life Institute depicted extensively in the film is based on the production team's research trips to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, the Marine Mammal Center and the Vancouver Aquarium. Thomas Newman returned to compose the score.
Finding Dory premiered at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles on June 8, 2016, and was released in theaters in the United States on June 17. It received widespread praise from critics, like its predecessor, for its animation, emotional weight, voice acting and humor. The film earned $1.029 billion worldwide, finishing its theatrical run as the third-highest-grossing film of 2016 and the fourth-highest-grossing animated film at the time. It set numerous box office records, including the biggest opening for an animated film in Canada and the United States and the highest-grossing animated film in Canada and the United States. The film received a win at the 2017 Kids' Choice Awards for Favorite Animated Movie, among various other awards at various shows.
Plot
Dory, a regal blue tang, gets separated from her parents, Jenny and Charlie, as a child. Growing up, Dory gradually forgets them due to her short-term memory loss. She eventually meets and joins the clownfish Marlin, looking for his son, Nemo, who was taken by divers to Sydney, Australia.
One year after meeting Marlin and Nemo, Dory lives with them in the Great Barrier Reef as their next-door neighbor. One day, she remembers her parents and that they lived at the "Jewel of Morro Bay, California". Dory embarks on a journey to find them again and Marlin and Nemo accompany her. With the help of Crush, their sea turtle friend, Dory, Marlin, and Nemo ride the California Current to California. While searching through the wreckage of a sunken container ship, in a container, Dory accidentally awakens a giant squid that almost devours Nemo. Worried, she leaves to look for help and is captured by staff members from the Marine Life Institute.
Dory is placed in quarantine and tagged, marking her for transfer to an aquarium in Cleveland. She meets a brusque but well-meaning seven-limbed octopus named Hank, who fears being released back into the ocean, so he agrees to help her find her parents in exchange for her tag. In one exhibit, Dory encounters Bailey, a beluga whale, and her childhood friend Destiny, a nearsighted whale shark, who used to communicate with Dory through the pipes when they were children. Dory finally remembers how she was separated from her parents: Dory was accidentally pulled away by an undertow current into the pipes and out into the ocean.
Meanwhile, Marlin and Nemo attempt to save Dory, and with the help of a pair of California sea lions and a common loon named Becky, they get into the institute and find her. Other blue tangs tell them that Dory's parents escaped years ago to search for her and never came back, leading Dory to believe that they are dead. Hank unintentionally drops Dory into the drain, flushing her out to the ocean. Dory comes across a trail of shells; remembering that her parents would set out similar shell trails to help her find her way back home, she follows it to a tire, where she reunites with her parents. They tell Dory that they stayed close to home and spent years laying down the shell trails for her in the hope that she would eventually find them again.
Marlin, Nemo, and Hank end up in a truck taking various aquatic creatures to Cleveland. Destiny and Bailey escape from their exhibit to help Dory rescue them. On board the truck, Dory persuades Hank to return to the sea with her. Together, they hijack the truck and crash it into the sea, freeing all the fish. Dory, along with her parents and new friends, returns to the reef with Marlin and Nemo, whom she now considers family, and they all settle into a new life together.
In a post-credits scene, the Tank Gang, still trapped inside their plastic bags, now covered with algae (except for Jacques who is a cleaner shrimp), reach California after floating across the Pacific Ocean for one year. Much to their dismay, they are picked up by staff members from the Marine Life Institute.
Voice cast
Ellen DeGeneres as Dory, a regal blue tang, who suffers from short-term memory loss. Sloane Murray as young Dory. Murray is the seven-year-old daughter of producer Lindsey Collins. Lucia Geddes as teenage Dory. Albert Brooks as Marlin, an ocellaris clownfish, Nemo's overprotective father and Dory's best friend. Hayden Rolence as Nemo, a young optimistic clownfish who is Marlin's son. He replaces Alexander Gould, who previously voiced the character from Finding Nemo. Ed O'Neill as Hank, a grumpy, but well-meaning East Pacific red octopus, who is called a "septopus", having lost a tentacle. Kaitlin Olson as Destiny, a nearsighted whale shark who was Dory's childhood friend. Ty Burrell as Bailey, a beluga whale, who temporarily lost echolocation due to a concussion. Diane Keaton as Jenny, Dory's mother. Eugene Levy as Charlie, Dory's father. Idris Elba as Fluke, a California sea lion who is Rudder's friend. Dominic West as Rudder, a California sea lion who is Fluke's friend. Bob Peterson as Mr. Ray, a spotted eagle ray who is Nemo's schoolteacher. Andrew Stanton as Crush, a green sea turtle. Sigourney Weaver as herself, who voices the recorded messages broadcast over the institute's public address system. Bill Hader as Stan, a kelp bass and Inez's husband. Kate McKinnon as Inez, Stan's wife. Alexander Gould as Passenger Carl, a delivery truck driver who works for the institute. Gould previously voiced Nemo in Finding Nemo. Torbin Xan Bullock as Gerald, a California sea lion, who wants to lie on the rock occupied by Fluke and Rudder only to be constantly repelled by them. Katherine Ringgold as Kathy, a chickenfish. Bennett Dammann as Squirt, Crush's son. He was previously voiced by Nicholas Bird in Finding Nemo. John Ratzenberger as Husband Crab (Bill) Angus MacLane as Sunfish "Charlie Back-and-Forth" Willem Dafoe as Gill, a Moorish idol and the leader of the "Tank Gang". Brad Garrett as Bloat, a pufferfish. Allison Janney as Peach, a starfish. Austin Pendleton as Gurgle, a royal gramma. Stephen Root as Bubbles, a yellow tang. Vicki Lewis as Deb, a four-striped damselfish. Jerome Ranft as Jacques, a cleaner shrimp. He was originally voiced by Joe Ranft, his late brother, in Finding Nemo.
Production
Prior to work on Finding Dory, the idea of a sequel to Finding Nemo had been teased since Fall 2003. Ellen DeGeneres said in September 2003 that she is game to dive back in for a sequel. "Disney and Pixar have to make that deal right now, but everybody is all for it." She joked that since Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, and Cameron Diaz would pocket upwards of $5 million apiece for Shrek 2, "Then I'll make $12 million." Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich stated in an October 2003 interview to the British press that they were also not ruling out the possibility of making a sequel. "After Toy Story came out everybody said 'Is there going to be another one? We all said 'No way!' But you never know--maybe we will do Finding Nemo 2!".
In 2005, Disney had planned to make a Finding Nemo sequel without Pixar's involvement, through Circle Seven Animation, a studio Disney announced in 2005 with the intention to make sequels to Pixar properties. However, due to the 2006 acquisition of Pixar by Disney, Circle Seven was shut down by Disney without having produced a film. Although it never went into production, a script for the Circle Seven version was uploaded to the official Raindance Film Festival website. Elements of the unmade script included the introduction of Nemo's long-lost twin brother, Remy, and a storyline wherein Marlin is caught and must be saved.
In July 2012, Andrew Stanton was announced as the director of a Finding Nemo sequel, with Victoria Strouse writing the script. That same month, Stanton examined the veracity of the news involving the potential sequel. That August, Ellen DeGeneres had entered negotiations to reprise her role of Dory, and in September, the film was confirmed by Stanton, saying: "What was immediately on the list was writing a second Carter movie. When that went away, everything slid up. I know I'll be accused by more sarcastic people that it's a reaction to Carter not doing well, but only in its timing, but not in its conceit." In February 2013, it was confirmed by the press that Albert Brooks would reprise the role of Marlin in the sequel.
In April 2013, Disney announced the sequel, Finding Dory, confirming that DeGeneres and Brooks would be reprising their roles as Dory and Marlin, respectively. Following a long campaign for a sequel on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, DeGeneres stated:
In a July 2013 interview with Los Angeles Times, Stanton spoke of the sequel's origin: "There was polite inquiry from Disney [about a Finding Nemo sequel]. I was always 'No sequels, no sequels.' But I had to get on board from a VP standpoint. [Sequels] are part of the necessity of our staying afloat, but we don't want to have to go there for those reasons. We want to go there creatively, so we said [to Disney], 'Can you give us the timeline about when we release them? Because we'd like to release something we actually want to make, and we might not come up with it the year you want it.
In a 2016 interview, Stanton stated how the film's story came to be; "I don't watch my films that often after they're done because I have to watch them so many times before they come out. So about 2010 when we were getting Finding Nemo ready for the 10-year re-release in 3D, it was interesting to watch again after all that time. Something kind of got lodged in the back of my brain and started to sort of stew. I started to think about how easily Dory could get lost and not find Marlin and Nemo again. She basically was in the same state that she was when Marlin found her. I didn't know where she was from. I knew that she had spent most of her youth wandering the ocean alone, and I wanted to know that she could find her new family, if she ever got lost again. It's almost like the parental side of me was worried." Stanton additionally stated: "I knew if I ever said Finding Dory or mentioned a sequel to Finding Nemo out loud, I'd be done, [T]here would be no way I'd be able to put that horse back in the barn. So I kept it very quiet until I knew I had a story that I thought would hold, and that was in early 2012. So I pitched it to John Lasseter and he was all into it. Then I got a writer, and once we had a treatment that we kind of liked, I felt comfortable calling Ellen."