Four-legged friends are usually an instant win for us and in this case Dante from the upcoming Disney-Pixar feature COCO is a preciously adorable pooch pal to the film’s lead character Miguel. Ahead of the film’s debut, the playful pup gets his own animated short, Dante’s Lunch–A Short Tail!
Director Lee Unkrich told Yahoo Movies that his team created it to help them flesh out the canine character who is based on a Xolo (or Xoloitzcuintli), an ancient breed that can be traced as far back as 3,500 years and, Unkrich said, “figures very prominently in Aztec legends about the afterlife. It was said that in order to make the journey through the afterlife, you needed to have one of these Xolo dogs with you.”
In COCO, we find Miguel (voice of newcomer Anthony Gonzalez) who despite his family’s baffling generations-old ban on music, dreams of becoming an accomplished musician like his idol, Ernesto de la Cruz (voice of Benjamin Bratt). Desperate to prove his talent, Miguel finds himself in the stunning and colorful Land of the Dead following a mysterious chain of events. Along the way, he meets charming trickster Hector (voice of Gael García Bernal), and together, they set off on an extraordinary journey to unlock the real story behind Miguel’s family history.
COCO arrives in theaters November 22, 2017.
