# Finding Nemo (franchise)

Finding Nemo is a CGI animated film series and Disney media franchise that began with the 2003 film of the same name, produced by Pixar and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The original film was followed by a standalone sequel, Finding Dory, released in 2016. Both films were directed by Andrew Stanton. The film series received widespread critical acclaim from critics and audiences with two films released to-date, the series has grossed $1.9 billion worldwide.

## Film series
### Finding Nemo (2003)

Finding Nemo is the fifth Pixar film. The film tells the story of a clownfish named Nemo (voiced by Alexander Gould), who gets abducted from his home in the Great Barrier Reef and winds up in a dentist’s office aquarium. His over-protective father Marlin (voiced by Albert Brooks) who, along with an amnesiac regal tang named Dory (voiced by Ellen DeGeneres), searches for him all the way to Sydney Harbour. Along the way, Marlin learns to take risks and let little Nemo take care of himself.

### Finding Dory (2016)

Finding Dory is the seventeenth Pixar film. The film focuses on the amnesiac character Dory (voiced by Ellen DeGeneres), who travels to California to find her long-lost parents, Jenny and Charlie, as well as exploring the idea of her being reunited with her family. It takes place one year after Finding Nemo and is set off the coast of Morro Bay, California.

### Future films

Director Andrew Stanton commented in June 2016 about the possibility of a third Finding film, stating:
   "I really do feel like that this was the missing piece, emotionally, for the first movie. Now, I’ve stopped saying never for anything because there are a lot of new characters that get introduced and we’ve broadened the universe for this movie. And again, I’m very used to seeing that world continue to open up from the Toy Story movies, so I’ve learned to just say, to my knowledge, I think everything that was born of the first movie is wrapped up. But we’ll see. With any of the other sequels, we strive to try and make it seem like it was inevitable, like it was meant to be, that all these extended stories and journeys with these characters were part of the whole canon. And that's really hard, but it's so satisfying for me when I’m experiencing that, whether it's a great second season of a TV show or another book in a series. It's a small club when it's done successfully. Regardless of how much people may vocalize that they don’t enjoy or wish that there weren’t extensions, sometimes it's really nice to go back and spend more time with these characters if they evolve, if they grow, if they expand. So that, I’m very happy with. I feel like it was just as hard, if not harder, on Finding Dory to get it to feel inevitable and preordained, and that it was always of the larger piece."
In May 2024, Pixar CCO Pete Docter suggested that the studio was considering making a third installment in the Finding Nemo franchise. He stated "Where else have we not gone in the ocean? The ocean's a big place. I think there's a lot of opportunity there. We're kind of fishing around." In July 2024, while in the middle of her final tour entitled "Ellen's Last Stand...Up", DeGeneres answered in a Q&A session that her Netflix special later that year would be her last act in show business. When asked if she would reprise the role of Dory again, DeGeneres responded "No, I’m going bye-bye, remember."

## Short films

* Exploring the Reef with Jean-Michel Cousteau (2003): A short documentary film. It features Jean-Michel Cousteau, exploring the Great Barrier Reef, but Marlin, Dory, and Nemo keep interrupting him. The short film is included on the Finding Nemo DVD.
* Marine Life Interviews (2016): A short film focusing on some of the supporting characters within Dory as they give brief interviews and thoughts on Dory herself. This is similar to the character interviews for Finding Nemo.
* Dory Finding (2021): Dory Finding shows Dory finding items from the surface in the coral reef. This short is part of the Pixar Popcorn series on Disney+.

## Reception
### Box office performance

Finding Nemo is the second highest-grossing film of 2003, behind The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. It was the highest-grossing Pixar film, up until 2010 when Toy Story 3 surpassed it. Finding Dory is the third-highest-grossing film of 2016, behind Civil War and Rogue One.
Finding Nemo is the 10th highest-grossing animated franchise.
| Film | Release date | Revenue | Revenue | Revenue | Rank | Rank | Budget |
| Film | Release date | United States | Other territories | Worldwide | All-time domestic | All-time worldwide | Budget |
| Finding Nemo | May 30, 2003 | $380,843,261 | $559,492,275 | $940,335,536 | #26 #55 (A) | #36 | $99,000,000 |
| Original release | May 30, 2003 | $339,714,978 | $531,304,279 | $871,019,257 | | | $94,000,000 |
| 3-D re-release | September 14, 2012 | $41,128,283 | $28,187,996 | $69,316,279 | | | $5,000,000 |
| Finding Dory | June 17, 2016 | $486,295,561 | $541,068,765 | $1,027,364,326 | #7 #71 (A) | #22 | $200,000,000 |
| Total | Total | $867,138,822 | $1,100,561,040 | $1,967,699,862 | | | $299,000,000 |
| List indicator(s) $^{(A)}$ indicates the adjusted totals based on current ticket prices (calculated by Box Office Mojo). ||||||||

### Critical and public response

| Film | Critical | Critical | Public |
| Film | Rotten Tomatoes | Metacritic | CinemaScore |
| Finding Nemo | 99% (267 reviews) | 90 (38 reviews) | A+ |
| Finding Dory | 94% (339 reviews) | 77 (48 reviews) | A |

## Accolades

Both films received universal acclaim, with the first film winning the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. It was a financial blockbuster as it grossed over $921 million worldwide. It is the best-selling DVD of all time, with over 40 million copies sold as of 2006 and is the 2nd highest grossing G-rated movie of all time. In 2008, the American Film Institute named it the 10th greatest American Animated film ever made during their 10 Top 10. It also won the award for best Animated Film at the Kansas City Film Critics Circle Awards, the Las Vegas Film Critics Society Awards, the National Board of Review Awards, the Online Film Critics Society Awards, and the Toronto Film Critics Association Awards.

## Cast and characters

This section includes characters who will appear or have appeared in the franchise.
* An empty grey cell indicates the character was not in the film, or that the character's official presence has not yet been confirmed.
* $^Y$ indicates a younger version of the character.
| Characters | Feature films | Feature films | Short films | Short films |
| Characters | Finding Nemo | Finding Dory | Exploring the Reef with Jean-Michel Cousteau | Marine Life Interviews |
| Nemo | Alexander Gould | Hayden Rolence | Alexander Gould | |
| Marlin | Albert Brooks | Albert Brooks | Albert Brooks | |
| Dory | Ellen DeGeneres | Ellen DeGeneresSloane MurrayLucia Geddes | Ellen DeGeneres | Ellen DeGeneres |
| Gill | Willem Dafoe | Willem Dafoe | | |
| Bloat | Brad Garrett | Brad Garrett | | |
| Peach | Allison Janney | Allison Janney | | |
| Gurgle | Austin Pendleton | Austin Pendleton | | |
| Bubbles | Stephen Root | Stephen Root | | |
| Deb | Vicki Lewis | Vicki Lewis | | |
| Jacques | Joe Ranft | Jerome Ranft | | |
| Crush | Andrew Stanton | Andrew Stanton | | |
| Squirt | Nicholas Bird | Bennett Dammann | | |
| Mr. Ray | Bob Peterson | Bob Peterson | | |
| Bruce | Barry Humphries | Deleted scene | | |
| Darla Sherman | LuLu Ebeling | Photograph | | |
| Tad | Jordy Ranft | Characters are mute | | |
| Sheldon | Erik Per Sullivan | Characters are mute | | |
| Pearl | Erica Beck | Characters are mute | | |
| Anchor | Eric Bana | | | |
| Chum | Bruce Spence | | | |
| Philip Sherman | Bill Hunter | | | |
| Nigel | Geoffrey Rush | | | |
| Coral | Elizabeth Perkins | | | |
| School of Moonfish | John Ratzenberger | | | |
| Hank | | Ed O'Neill | | Ed O'Neill |
| Destiny | | Kaitlin Olson | | Kaitlin Olson |
| Bailey | | Ty Burrell | | Ty Burrell |
| Jenny | | Diane Keaton | | |
| Charlie | | Eugene Levy | | |
| Fluke | | Idris Elba | | Idris Elba |
| Rudder | | Dominic West | | Dominic West |
| Stan | | Bill Hader | | |
| Inez | | Kate McKinnon | | |
| Gerald | | Torbin Xan Bullock | | |
| Becky | | Torbin Xan Bullock | | |
| Bill | | John Ratzenberger | | |
| Jean-Michel Cousteau | | | Himself | |
* Note: A grey cell indicates that the character didn't appear in the film.

## Theme park attractions

* Crush's Coaster at Walt Disney Studios Park at Disneyland Paris.
* Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage at Disneyland at Disneyland Resort.
* Finding Nemo – The Musical at Disney's Animal Kingdom at Walt Disney World.
* The Seas with Nemo & Friends at Epcot at Walt Disney World.
* Turtle Talk with Crush at Epcot at Walt Disney World, Disney California Adventure at Disneyland Resort and Tokyo DisneySea at Tokyo Disney Resort.
* Nemo & Friends SeaRider at Tokyo DisneySea at Tokyo Disney Resort.

## Other media
### Video games
#### Finding Nemo

Finding Nemo was released in 2003 by THQ. The goal in the game is to complete different levels under the roles of film protagonists Nemo, Marlin or Dory. It includes cutscenes from the movie and each clip is based on a level. For example, Marlin and Dory hopping through a batch of jellyfish.
The game received mixed reviews. It received 2/5 stars on GameSpy, 6.2/10 points on GameSpot and IGN gave it 7.0/10 and 6.0/10 on its PS2 and Xbox, and GameCube platforms, respectively.

#### Disney Friends

In 2007, Disney Interactive Studios released Disney Friends. It is a video game based on various Disney films. The game features characters Stitch from Lilo & Stitch, Dory from Finding Nemo, Pooh from Winnie the Pooh, and Simba from The Lion King.

#### Kinect: Disneyland Adventures

Kinect: Disneyland Adventures is a video game released in 2011 by Frontier Developments. The game is based in various Disneyland attractions. It was released on Kinect for Xbox 360. Characters from Finding Nemo appear as part of a minigame based on Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage.

#### Nemo's Reef

Nemo's Reef was a mobile game available from December 20, 2012 to June 30, 2017 by Disney Mobile. The game is a casual reef building which features characters from Finding Nemo. It was released on Android and iOS devices.

#### Disney Infinity

Disney Infinity was a video game series developed by Avalanche Software that ran from 2013 to 2016. Elements from Finding Nemo appeared throughout all three games in the series, with power discs based on the film released for the first game, and a playset based on Finding Dory along with Dory and Nemo figures released for the console versions of Disney Infinity 3.0 in June 2016. The aforementioned playset and figures were the last new content released for the series, which was cancelled by Disney in May 2016.

#### Rush: A Disney•Pixar Adventure

Kinect Rush: A Disney•Pixar Adventure is a video game developed by Asobo Studio originally released in 2012 for Xbox 360. On October 31, 2017, a remastered release without the Kinect branding titled Rush: A Disney•Pixar Adventure was released for Xbox One and Microsoft Windows 10. The remastered version adds a world based on Finding Dory alongside the original release's worlds.

#### Disney Magic Kingdoms

During a limited time Event focused on the franchise, under the name "Finding Marlin", the world builder game Disney Magic Kingdoms included Nemo, Marlin, Dory, Crush, Squirt, Bruce and Hank as playable characters, along with the attractions Crush's Coaster, Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage, and The Seas with Nemo and Friends. Bailey and Destiny were also included as playable characters in a later update of the game. In the game the characters are involved in new storylines that serve as a continuation of the events in the films.

### Stage musical

Finding Nemo – The Musical is a 40-minute show (performed five times daily), which opened on January 24, 2007 at the Theater in the Wild at Disney's Animal Kingdom in Orlando, Florida. It is a musical adaption of the film with new songs written by Tony Award-winning Avenue Q composer Robert Lopez and his wife, Kristen Anderson-Lopez. It would "combine puppets, dancers, acrobats and animated backdrops".

### Appearance on Fetch! With Ruff Ruffman

In the PBS KIDS Show Fetch! With Ruff Ruffman, Crush the sea turtle appeared as a guest star in the Season 5 episode, "The Ol' Shell Game", voiced again by Andrew Stanton.

### Magazine

In August 2016, Egmont Publishing launched a magazine, titled Finding Dory.

### Music

Finding Nemo is the soundtrack album of the film of the same name. Finding Dory is the soundtrack album of the film of the same name. The soundtracks were scored by Thomas Newman.
The score was nominated for the 76th Academy Awards for Best Original Score but lost against The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. It received 5/5 stars from the Film Score Reviews and 3.5/5 stars from Soundtrack.net.

## Crew

| Film | Director(s) | Writer(s) | Producer(s) | Executive Producer | Composer | Editor(s) |
| Finding Nemo | Andrew Stanton Co-directed by: Lee Unkrich | Original Story by: Andrew Stanton Screenplay by: Andrew Stanton, Bob Peterson and David Reynolds | Graham Walters | John Lasseter | Thomas Newman | David Ian Salter |
| Finding Dory | Andrew Stanton Co-directed by: Angus MacLane | Original Story by: Andrew Stanton Screenplay by: Andrew Stanton and Victoria Strouse | Lindsey Collins | John Lasseter | Thomas Newman | Axel Geddes |