Pixar Announces Release of Live-Action Pumpkids Movie in 2026

Emeryville, CA - Fans of the award-winning Pumpkids movies, reeling from news that the third and final installment of the planned Pumpkids trilogy has been postponed for undisclosed reasons, now have something to be excited about: a live-action prequel set to be released next October.

Dame Judi Dench, sister of live-action Pumpkids prequel star Trudi, shown here playing a corrupt vice-president of Consolidated Companies in 9 to 5 2: Now They're All British!.

"A lot of people have expressed interest in Lady Grumpkin's journey from a young patchling in a family of lesser nobles all the way to the throne of Pumpkinland," Pixar CEO and president Jim Morris explained. "Given what we know about the history of Pumpkinland, her rise to power almost certainly involved a mysterious prophecy, a bloody uprising, a lesbian subplot, and maybe even a dragon or two."

The movie, titled The Pumpkids Prequel: Intimate Encounters, will be set several decades before the events of The Pumpkids Movie: Rise of the PumpKing and it's sequel, The Pumpkids Movie 2: The Patch of Destiny, is Pixar's first live-action film and will contain a number of sexually explicit scenes that push the boundaries of what is acceptable in a show based on a series of children's books. According to human writer Noel Freeman, the studio had to make some hard choices during the early stages of pre-production. "We didn't feel that Jobby, our AI content creation program named after Steve Jobs, was the right fit for this project. It kept making all the characters racist. And I mean extremely racist. Even the heroes. Like, I think it's almost as if, and I'm not 100% confident here, but it's like maybe Jobby is racist."

"The decision to go for and even embrace an x-rating for the live-action prequel was controversial among Pixar leadership," Freeman revealed. "But at the end of the day, it's what worked for this character at this moment in her life as a young pumpkin aristocrat sleeping her way to the Throne of Vines. Now I'm not going to say you shouldn't take your kids to see this move, but I am going to say that you should be prepared for some pretty tough questions on the drive home."

One of the hardest decisions during pre-production came when it was time to cast the main protagonist, Lady Grumpkin herself. Morris nearly broke down in tears when sharing his experience working with the late Queen Elizabeth, who voiced the character in the first installment of the Pumpkids trilogy. "We had a choice, go with a computer generated representation based on archive footage of the Queen as a younger woman or hire a human actress. I'm not going to spoil the movie but I'm pretty sure that audiences won't hate what we ended up going with."

The Pumpkids Prequel: Intimate Encounters will be in theaters next October.