# Dream Productions

Dream Productions is an American animated television miniseries produced by Pixar Animation Studios for the streaming service Disney+. Developed and created by Mike Jones, it is set between the events of Inside Out (2015) and Inside Out 2 (2024), serving as an interquel. Dream Productions follows Paula Persimmon (Paula Pell) who teams with Xeni (Richard Ayoade) to create the next big tween-dream. Jones served as the series' showrunner.
Jones was announced to be creating a series based on Inside Out at Pixar in June 2023. The series was being produced concurrently with the sequel film Inside Out 2. Its title was unveiled in May 2024. Nami Melumad provided the score for all four episodes. The four-episode series run approximately 82 minutes long.
Dream Productions premiered on Disney+ on December 11, 2024.

## Voice cast

* Paula Pell as Paula Persimmon, an acclaimed dream director and the current head of Dream Productions
* Richard Ayoade as Kenny "Xeni" Dewberry, an overly confident daydream director, Jean's nephew, and Paula's new A.D.
* Maya Rudolph as Jean Dewberry, the former head of Dream Productions, Xeni's aunt and Paula's boss
* Kensington Tallman as Riley Andersen, a girl appearing in different moments from childhood to pre-teen in whose mind the emotions live
* Ally Maki as Janelle Johnson, Paula's former A.D. who dreams of making her very own dreams and becomes a successful director herself
* Amy Poehler as Joy, a yellow emotion who often takes the lead in Riley's emotional life and is in charge of giving her assurance in her everyday life and helping her enjoy it to the fullest
* Phyllis Smith as Sadness, a blue emotion who helps Riley process upsetting experiences and seek help from others when she needs it
* Liza Lapira as Disgust, a green emotion who uses Riley's likes and dislikes to discern whether something could poison her physically or socially
* Lewis Black as Anger, a red emotion who is in charge of fighting to keep things fair for Riley
* Tony Hale as Fear, a purple emotion responsible for protecting Riley from threats in the physical world
* Lauren Holt as "Teen Riley", a manifestation of Riley's teenage self that she drew when she was younger represented by a traditionally animated doodle on loose-leaf paper who works as a barista but later cast in a dream
* Kimberly Woods as Gigi
* Carlos Alazraqui as Marco
* Matthew Yang King as Sheng
* Diane Lane as Mrs. Andersen, Riley's mother
* Kyle MacLachlan as Mr. Andersen, Riley's father
* Grace Lu as Grace, one of Riley's best friends
* Sumayyah Nuriddin-Green as Bree, one of Riley's best friends
* Noah Bentley as C.B. ("Canadian Boyfriend"), the representation of Riley's ideal boyfriend
* Maya Aoki Tuttle as Noriko

## Episodes

| No. | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original release date |
| 1 | "Part 1: The Dream Team" | Valerie LaPointe | Mike Jones | December 11, 2024 (2024-12-11) |
| Paula Persimmon is an acclaimed dream director from Dream Productions in Riley's mind. When her assistant director Janelle tries to tell her that she is planning on striking out on her own, Paula is too distracted on making a worthwhile dream for Riley. Paula decides to create a dream where Riley attends an upcoming school dance with Rainbow Unicorn making an appearance, despite Janelle feeling that Riley is too mature for that. The head of Dream Productions, Jean Dewberry, then promotes Janelle to be a new director, much to Paula's surprise. Paula's dream at first goes well, but when Rainbow Unicorn comes out of a giant clam shell, it destroys the set and ate the Riley camera. |||||
| 2 | "Part 2: Out of Body" | Valerie LaPointe | Mike Jones | December 11, 2024 (2024-12-11) |
| Paula is assigned a new assistant, Jean's pretentious daydream director nephew Xeni, who believes that Riley's dreams should be more mature. Paula insists on doing things her way through, which results in another bad dream starring Rainbow Unicorn. Xeni's mocking results in Paula discharging him. Meanwhile, Janelle creates a new hit dream and Jean subtly warns Paula that she might be fired if she can't make a new good dream. |||||
| 3 | "Part 3: Romance!" | Austin Madison | Mike Jones | December 11, 2024 (2024-12-11) |
| Paula rehires Xeni and thanks to his influence, the dreams they create involving Riley taking a Canadian-based boyfriend ("C.B.") to the dance are doing well. Jean soon decides to give the crew the entire night to create a dream, which results in Paula once again taking over. Xeni, determined, soon creates another fake boyfriend to add in drama. This results in Paula and Xeni repeatedly sabotaging each other, overcrowding the set with fake boyfriends and disrupting Riley's mind to the point where she begins sleepwalking for the first time in her life, resulting in the camera moving on its own. In this unconscious state, Riley nearly falls off the stairs while the camera almost falls off a set. Jean, furious over the debacle, demotes Xeni to work at the local café with Jacob after Paula shifts the blame on him, while Paula is put under pressure to create another mature dream, but if not, she would be demoted to brain farts. |||||
| 4 | "Part 4: A Night to Remember" | Mike Jones | Mike Jones | December 11, 2024 (2024-12-11) |
| Because of the sleepwalking incident, Jean begins taking over everyone's dreams by giving all of the directors locked scripts. Wanting to get back at Paula, Xeni creates a fake script for a bad dream and slips it into Paula's folder. Paula soon decides to quit, believing she doesn't know Riley at all. Conscience stricken, Xeni finds Paula and confesses his sabotage and that since Paula has resigned, his fake script has been reassigned to Janelle. When Paula tries to warn Janelle of this, Jean comes and actually approves of Xeni's script. When Paula, Xeni and Janelle become unwilling to direct, Jean fires them all. They manage to sneak back into Dream Productions where they soon remove the camera's reality distortion filter so that Riley can understand that it's all not real when the dream begins taking a toll on her, giving Riley a lucid dream. The dream is changed into a happy one and Riley soon decides to go to the dance with Bree and Grace. Because of Jean's behavior, she is demoted to working at the cafe with Jacob, Xeni becomes the new director, and Paula becomes the new head of Dream Productions. |||||

## Production
### Development

On June 16, 2023, it was reported that an Inside Out television series was being developed by Pixar for Disney+; the series was reportedly being developed as part of an effort by Disney to increase Pixar's output. Mike Jones, who previously wrote Soul (2020) and Luca (2021) for the studio, was set to develop the series. The series was being developed simultaneously with a sequel to the original film, titled Inside Out 2 (2024). By May 2024, the series had been titled Dream Productions.
In August 2024, Jones revealed he would executive produce the series, as well as serve as director alongside Valerie LaPointe and Austin Madison, with Jaclyn Simon as producer, and Jones as showrunner. Paula Pell was also confirmed to reprise her role as dream director Paula Persimmon from the first film to star as the main protagonist in the series. The series was produced under a smaller budget than most Pixar productions, which Jones compared to making an independent film within Pixar. The series was originally set to be seven episodes long, but the episode count was reduced to four due to budget cuts.

### Writing

The series is set between the events of Inside Out and Inside Out 2. Executive producer and Inside Out director Pete Docter said the series would explore "the power of dreams and how they affect us in our waking life". Jones said the relationship between Paula and Riley was inspired by his relationship with his sons, and how he had to "find a different way of talking to them" as they grew up. The producers consulted with the group of nine teens Pixar assembled to consult for Inside Out 2 (dubbed "Riley's Crew") to provide feedback for the show; their feedback led the filmmakers to increase the Hollywood-esque aspect of the show after they reacted positively to it.

### Animation

Bert Barry served as the production designer for the series. Assets from the first Inside Out film were reused for Dream Productions, in addition to collaborating with the team for Inside Out 2, who shared new assets created for that film for the series as both productions shared a Perforce server as a cost-cutting measure; visual effects supervisor Bill Wise noted the assets sharing was required due to the series lacking the budget to create new assets. He also noted this allowed the series' team to reuse several character models from the film. Multiple teams, such as the assets and art teams, were also combined to streamline production and allow for the directors to review the material. The set design team, led by set art director Josh Holtsclaw, traveled to multiple studio lots, including the 20th Century Studios and Walt Disney Studios backlots, to study them and draw inspiration for the design of the Dream Productions studio, while also incorporating elements from San Francisco.

### Music

On September 24, 2024, Nami Melumad was revealed to be composing for the series. Melumad joined the series after being asked to present musical reels by Disney's music department, who hired her as composer after she presented said reels, in which she combined different music styles to fit the tone for the series. Showrunner Mike Jones also gave a few ideas for the series' score. For the dream sequences, Melumad made use of several types of music, including 80s rock music and children's music, in order to reflect how dreams were different every time, while the score for the series itself draws inspiration from "early 70s funk, rock, [and] jazz" due to its humorous tone, while also ultimately aiming for the music to make the setting feel like an actual Hollywood studio. A soundtrack featuring Melumad's score was released on December 20, 2024.

## Release

All four episodes of Dream Productions were released on Disney+ on December 11, 2024. The series was originally scheduled to be released by the spring of 2025 but was moved forward, having swapped its release date with the Pixar television series Win or Lose.

## Reception
### Viewership

Disney+, which calculates its "Top 10" list by considering daily views for episodes and movies alongside the growing popularity of newly released titles, announced that Dream Productions was the most popular title in the U.S. upon its debut. The Walt Disney Company revealed that the first episode garnered 5.6 million views worldwide in its first five days, marking the biggest premiere for an animated series on Disney+ since What If...? in 2021. The series maintained the top position on Disney+'s "Top 10" list until December 29. Dream Productions later moved to fifth place on December 30.

### Critical response

The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 78% approval rating with an average rating of 6.5/10, based on 18 critic reviews. Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 67 out of 100 based on 14 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.

### Accolades

| Award | Date of Ceremony | Category | Nominee(s) | Result |
| Annie Awards | February 8, 2025 | Best Limited Series | "A Night to Remember" | Won |
| Annie Awards | February 8, 2025 | Outstanding Achievement for Animated Effects in an Animated Television/Broadcast Production | Gary Bruins, Jongwon Pak, Arturo Aguilar, Alan Browning and Alen Lai (for "A Night to Remember") | Nominated |
| Annie Awards | February 8, 2025 | Outstanding Achievement for Character Animation in an Animated Television / Broadcast Production | Travis Hathaway (for "The Dream Team", "Out of Body" and "Romance!") | Nominated |
| Annie Awards | February 8, 2025 | Outstanding Achievement for Character Design in an Animated Television / Broadcast Production | Grant Alexander (for "A Night to Remember") | Nominated |
| Annie Awards | February 8, 2025 | Outstanding Achievement for Production Design in an Animated Television / Broadcast Production | Bert Berry and Josh Holtsclaw (for "The Dream Team") | Nominated |
| Annie Awards | February 8, 2025 | Outstanding Achievement for Voice Acting in an Animated Television / Broadcast Production | Paula Pell (for "Out of Body") | Won |
| Society of Composers & Lyricists Awards | February 12, 2025 | Outstanding Original Title Sequence for a Television Production | Nami Melumad | Nominated |