"Get ready, amigos. De la Cruz is coming back": Pixar Announces Coco 2 Release Date

Those were the words Benjamin Bratt used to walk out on stage at the D23 fan festival in Anaheim — bringing back the villain who was crushed by a giant bell in the first film's finale. Pixar announced that Coco 2 will open on November 21, 2029, revealed the first concept art, and, unusually for a studio known for staying tight-lipped, laid out the plot setup right away. No actual footage has been shown yet — just a single image.

In the concept art, Miguel is no longer the twelve-year-old boy from the first film: he's older now, with a different haircut, his familiar guitar on his back, and his dog Dante running beside him. The sequel picks up several years after the events of the original, with Miguel now a teenager — Bratt described the character from the stage as, to some, a small thorn who ruined a career and destroyed an entire legacy, seen through his own character's eyes, of course.

That's exactly why Ernesto de la Cruz is coming back — for revenge. His attack is what drives Miguel back into the Land of the Dead, so the sequel will once again collide the world of the living with the afterlife. Pixar hasn't yet explained how de la Cruz survived the first film's ending — that's about the only thing the studio kept to itself.

The original creative team is behind the sequel: director Lee Unkrich and co-director Adrian Molina, with Mark Nielsen producing. So far Bratt is the only confirmed returning cast member — whether Anthony Gonzalez, who voiced Miguel, will return hasn't been announced. The sequel itself was first announced back in March 2025, but there'd been no word on it since.

The stakes are high for the studio: the original Coco came out in 2017, grossed $817 million (about 65 billion rubles), and won two Oscars — for Best Animated Feature and for the song "Remember Me." The sequel's release date lines up almost to the day: the first film opened November 22, and the second will land in that same pre-holiday window twelve years later. Before that, though, the world of Coco will make one more appearance — in Kingdom Hearts IV, which Bratt announced in that very same stage appearance.

Do you think Pixar can pull off a second Land of the Dead story, or was the first one self-contained?