Pixar’s First Gangster Movie Officially Revealed with Fantastic First Gatto Footage – Watch the Trailer

Disney-Pixar is at it again, and this time the award-winning animation studio is headed into territory we never expected. After taking fans on journeys through action, adventure, sci-fi, and fantasy worlds (always with a hearty dose of heart and insight), the latest Pixar movie will be dipping into the crime-drama genre with an animated mob movie entirely set in the world of cats.

Title Gatto (the Italian word for a male cat), the new film is set in Venice, Italy, and will follow Nero, a black cat living on the streets of the city. Nero finds himself an outcast: he cannot swim in a city covered in waterways, and the local populace is highly superstitious about having a black cat crossing their paths. With no real family or community to support him, Nero soon finds himself aligned with “Rocco,” a feline mob boss who takes Nero under his wing and tries to lure him into a mob life.

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Pixar’s Gatto Trailer & Voice Cast Revealed

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The first trailer fr Gatto also comes with a synopsis that makes some pretty big announcements about the cast and crew. The headlines are that Mark Ruffalo (Spider-Man: Brand New Day) and Laurence Fishburne (The Matrix, John Wick) have been cast in the lead roles of Nero and Rocco (respectively). The film is directed by Enrico Casarosa, the Italian filmmaker who also helmed Pixar’s cult-hit film, Luca.

The story synopsis for the film states that “In Gatto, after years of maneuvering the canal-ridden, superstitious city of Venice, Italy, Nero begins to question whether he’s lived the right life. Indebted to Rocco, the local feline mob boss, Nero finds himself in a quandary and is forced to forge a truly unexpected friendship that may finally lead him to his purpose—unless Venice gets the better of him first.”The “friendship” references will see Nero befriend “Maya,” a street musician who starts influencing his perspective.

While the teaser trailer doesn’t reveal the full splendor of the animation for this film, other teaser images have revealed that Gatto will mimic the still life painting styles of Italy, in an effort to “capture the painterly texture of Venice while still preserving the depth and dimension you’ve come to expect from Pixar,” Chief Creative Officer Pete Docter revealed during a studio presentation last year.

That stylistic decision alone will make Gatto a unique release from Pixar, the other being the mob-movie influences on the film. Obviously, Gatto has an authentically Italian director shaping it; however, the film will have to walk a balance beam to avoid cultural backlash. Mob-drama content has come under increasing scrutiny in the last few years from cultural groups who don’t like the Mafia being glamorized in popular culture. The fact that the characters are cats will help the film and its mob satire go down a whole lot easier, because people tend to let cute cats get away with anything.

Gatto will be released in theaters on March 5, 2027.