‘Gatto’ Trailer Offers A Closer Look At Pixar’s Painterly Turn

Disney and Pixar have released the full trailer for Gatto, the Venice-set crime comedy from Luca director Enrico Casarosa. It’s our most detailed look yet at the film’s hand-painted aesthetic in action, a visual choice that marks one of the biggest visual departures in Pixar’s feature history.

As we reported when Pixar unveiled the project at Annecy in 2025, the studio is combining CG animation with hand-painted 2D textures and shaders. The brushwork stays visible on the characters and in the architecture, and the flattened perspective gives some compositions the feel of an illustration. While Pixar has experimented with more stylized CG in films like Luca and Turning Red, with Gatto, the influence of 2D painting is far more pronounced.

In the film, Mark Ruffalo voices Nero, a black cat indebted to a Venetian mob boss named Rocco (Laurence Fishburne). With his nine lives running out, Nero strikes up an unlikely friendship with Maja, a street musician voiced by Bianca Babaşa. The cast also includes John Turturro, Isabella Rossellini, Sherry Cola, and Jason Schwartzman. Casarosa voices a pigeon named Saverio.

The film reunites Casarosa with Andrea Warren, who produced the Oscar-nominated Luca. Dario Marianelli, whose credits include Laika’s Kubo and the Two Strings and Wildwood, is composing the score.

Gatto opens in U.S. theaters on March 5, 2027.