On Thursday, September 12, Pixar announced on its social media handles that Inside Out 2 will premiere on the Disney+ streaming platform on September 25. The sequel to the 2015 family/comedy Inside Out became a blockbuster hit, grossing $1 billion at the global box office.
This coming-of-age film follows a young girl named Riley on her journey from being an infant to a child and then, in the latest sequel, a teenager. This journey is explored through the emotions she feels with each new accomplishment or loss. The first film showed how little Riley learns about the emotions of happiness, anger, disgust, fear, and sadness.
When Joy (voiced by Amy Poehler) disappears from Riley’s mind-controlled emotion headquarters, the girl is deprived of happiness and embarks on a dangerous and isolated path guided by all negative emotions. Meanwhile, Sadness touches many of Riley’s memories, despite Joy’s resistance.
However, when Joy finally returns to headquarters, she realizes that grief is a powerful and necessary emotion that must be expressed. This teaches viewers a valuable lesson about balancing emotions to live a fulfilling life and overcome toxic positivity.
In the sequel, Riley enters her teens, and with it comes a host of new and complex emotions – anxiety, boredom, jealousy, embarrassment, etc. that pervade her life amid the chaos of friends, school, and family. As Riley tries to adapt to her teen years, her old emotions try to adapt to the possibility of being replaced. The sequel features returning cast members Poehler as Joy, Phyllis Smith as Sadness, Lewis Black as Anger, Diane Lane and Kyle MacLachlan as Riley’s parents.
New members expressing new emotions include Maya Hawke as Anxiety, Ayo Edebiri as Jealousy, Kensington Tallman voicing teenage Riley, Tony Hale as Fear, and Liza Lapira as Disgust (a role played by Mindy Kaling in the first film). Lilimar, Grace Lu, Sumaiyya Nuriddin-Green, Adele Exarchopoulos, and Paul Walter Hauser are some of the other members joining the cast.
