Following Cars 2 next year, The Bear and the Bow is set to be released in 2012. This is still the case, except The Bear and The Bow has undergone a title change to the much more generic Brave. The film will be directed by Brenda Chapman, a long time Disney and Pixar creative head, and director of Dreamwork’s The Prince of Egypt in 1998.

Brave will be Pixar’s first contribution to Disney’s Princess stable, following Merida, a princess who much prefers to be an archer. Her father’s kingdom in the highlands becomes threatened when the reckless young girl triggers a curse of some sort. Brave represents a lot of firsts for Pixar- let’s hope one of them isn’t being the studio’s first outright bad movie. Of course, Cars 2 could take that mantle, if it doesn’t improve from the original (which, in a rare demonstration of AMPAS wisdom, is the only Pixar film since 2003 not to win Best Animated Feature). Like many Pixar concepts, reading it on paper doesn’t do it much justice, and it takes the magic of the first footage to sell the potential. With that in mind, I’m eager to see some of Brave in motion.