The Good Dinosaur (2015)

The Good Dinosaur is a 2015 American animated adventure produced by Pixar Animation Studios and directed by Peter Sohn. Set in an alternate history where the asteroid that caused the dinosaurs' extinction missed Earth, allowing dinosaurs to evolve into the dominant intelligent species, the film follows Arlo, a timid young Apatosaurus who is swept far from his family's farm by a river and must find his way home through a dangerous wilderness. Along the way, he befriends Spot, a feral human cave boy who communicates through barks and growls — an inversion of the typical boy-and-his-dog story where the dinosaur is the civilized companion and the human is the pet.

The Good Dinosaur had an exceptionally troubled production — the original director and much of the voice cast were replaced midway through, and the story was substantially reworked. The finished film's photorealistic landscape animation was among the most visually stunning work Pixar had ever produced, though the cartoonish character designs against these hyper-real backgrounds created an unusual tonal contrast. The Good Dinosaur earned $332 million worldwide on a $175 million budget, the lowest return for a Pixar original at that time.