Finding Dory

Finding Dory is a 2016 American animated comedy-drama adventure film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. It was directed by Andrew Stanton, and written by Stanton and Victoria Strouse. The film is both a sequel and spin-off following the events of Finding Nemo (2003). Ellen DeGeneres (in her final film role prior to her retirement in 2024) 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. She meets a brusque but well-meaning seven-limbed octopus named Hank. Dory's tag marks her for transfer to an aquarium in Cleveland. Hank, who fears being released back into the ocean, 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. 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

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:

"I have waited for this day for a long, long, long, long, long, long time. I'm not mad it took this long. I know the people at Pixar were busy creating Toy Story 16. But the time they took was worth it. The script is fantastic. And it has everything I loved about the first one: It's got a lot of heart, it's really funny, and the best part is—it's got a lot more Dory."

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.'"