‘Onward’ Finds Audiences Through Disney+ 

By JENNIKA INGRAM | Reporter    

The Disney/Pixar animated adventure “Onward”—starring Tom Holland, Chris Pratt and Palisadian Julia Louis-Dreyfus—hopes to capture audiences in a new release through the Disney+ streaming service on April 3.

The plan changed for the feature film after its theatrical release on March 6 faced multiple theater closures due to COVID-19 concerns.

“With more cinemas closing every day, Disney has decided to bring the Pratt and Holland movie to its streaming service Disney+ much earlier than initially planned, as well as making the movie available to buy online,” according to Newsweek.

The turnaround time to streaming comes less than one month later.

Set in a suburban fantasy world, teenage elf brothers “go on a journey to discover if there is still a little magic left out there in order to spend one last day with their father, who died when they were too young to remember him,” according to IMDb.

“When Ian (Holland) is gifted the means to resurrect his dead father for 24 hours on his 16th birthday, he inadvertently only summons the bottom half, so he and Barley (Pratt) set out on a road trip to rediscover the magic they’ll need to bring back the rest of their dad before times runs out,” according to Rotten Tomatoes.

The film stars Holland and Pratt as brothers Ian and Barley Lightfoot, and Louis-Dreyfus as their mother Laurel, the widow of their dad Wilden. Octavia Spencer voices the manticore, with Kyle Bornheimer as Wilden and Mel Rodriguez as a centaur police officer,

The cast includes comedians Lena Waithe, Ali Wong, Tracey Ullman and Wilmer Valderrama.

Dan Scanlon (“Monsters University”) directed the picture, touching on how it’s a personal tribute to his father.

“This is a really personal film for me,” Scanlon said to Deadline. “When I was a year old my father passed away—and my brother was three. We have no memory of him.”

Huntington resident Louis-Dreyfus’ character is based on Scanlon’s mother, Disney Fandom reported.

The audience score on Rotten Tomatoes is trending at 95% with more than 8,400 reviews, and the critics are giving it an 87% rating with nearly 300 reviews.

“Onward” is also available for purchase on Amazon’s Prime Video Cinema page, FandangoNOW, Google Play, iTunes and Vudu.

It’s rated PG with a runtime of one hour and 42 minutes.