Animation fans, used to worshipping the great god Pixar were rendered a little jumpy by the underwhelming quality of the recent Cars 2.

The team has made an effort to reassure acolytes at the recent D23 event – Disney’s own Nuremberg – in sunny Anaheim. Two new

projects were announced. Bob Peterson, co-director of the sublime Up, is in charge of the elegantly titled Untitled Pixar Movie About Dinosaurs.

The film imagines a world in which the giant lizards refused to become extinct. Also on our way in the next few years is Untitled Pixar Movie That Lets You See Inside The Human Brain. Pete Docter, Pixar royalty, said the picture would study “how we forget, why certain songs get stuck in our heads . . . It’s a place that we’ve all been to but have never seen.” Intriguing stuff.

Before all that develops, we can look forward to Brave, a class of Celtic fairy story, and a sequel to Monsters Inc.

Donald Clarke on way to big screen

The Donald Clarke film is nearly upon us. Regular readers will recall that

Death of a Superhero, the latest from Perrier’s

Bounty director Ian Fitzgibbon, features a protagonist with that excellent name.

It has emerged that the picture, starring Andy Serkis and Thomas Brodie- Sangster, will have its premiere at the Toronto Film Festival in October. Other Irish screenings include Mary Harron’s The Moth Diaries, a co-production with Canada, and the much anticipated Alfred Nobbs.