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Development

Director Pete Docter began writing Up in 2004 under the title of Heliums. He developed the fantasy of a flying house on the idea of escaping from life when it becomes too irritating, which stemmed from his difficulty with social situations growing up. Actor and writer Tom McCarthy aided Docter and Bob Peterson in shaping the story for about three months. Docter selected an old man for the main character after drawing a picture of a grumpy old man with smiling balloons.The two men thought an o...

Animation

Docter made Venezuela the film's setting after Ralph Eggleston gave him a video of the tepui mountains of Canaima National Park; tepuis were previously featured in another Disney film, Dinosaur. In 2004, Docter and eleven other Pixar artists spent three days reaching Monte Roraima by airplane, by jeep, and by helicopter. They also spent three nights there painting and sketching, and encountering ants, mosquitoes, scorpions, frogs, and snakes. They then flew to Matawi Tepui and climbed to Ange...

Up is the third Pixar film to be scored by Michael Giacchino, after The Incredibles and Ratatouille. What Pete Docter wanted most importantly out of the music was the emotion, so Giacchino wrote a character theme-based score that producer Jonas Rivera thought enhanced the story. At the beginning of the movie, when young Carl is in the movie theater watching a newsreel about Muntz, the first piece of music heard is "Muntz's Theme", which starts out as a celebratory theme, and echoes through the film when Muntz reappears 70 years later. "Ellie's Theme" is first heard when she is introduced as a little kid and plays several times during the film in different versions; for instance, during the sequence where Carl lifts his house with the balloons, the theme is changed from a simple piano melody to a full orchestral arrangement. Giacchino has compared the film to opera since each character has a unique theme that changesduring a particular moment in the story. The score was released as a...

When the film screened at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, California, from May 29 to July 23, 2009, it was accompanied by Lighten Up!, a live show featuring Disney characters. Other tie-ins included children's books such as My Name is Dug, illustrated by screenwriter Ronnie del Carmen. Despite Pixar's track record, Target Corporation and Walmart stocked few Up items, while Pixar's regular collaborator Thinkway Toys did not produce merchandise, claiming its story is unusual and would be hard to promote. Disney acknowledged not every Pixar film would have to become a franchise. Promotional partners include Aflac, NASCAR, and Airship Ventures, while Cluster Balloons promoted the film with a replica of Carl's couch lifted by hot air balloons for journalists to sit on. In Colombia, unexpected publicity for the film was generated due to the uncanny similarity of Carl with Colombian ex-president Julio César Turbay Ayala. Prior to the film's worldwide release date, Pixar granted a wish...

Box office

Up earned $293 million in the United States and Canada and $442.1 million in other countries for a worldwide total of $735.1 million. Worldwide, it was the sixth-highest-grossing film of 2009, the fourth-highest-grossing Pixar film, and the 24th-highest-grossing animated film. In the United States and Canada, Up is the 59th-highest-grossing film before inflation, the tenth-highest-grossing Disney film, the seventh-highest-grossing 3-D film, the sixth-highest-grossing animated film, the fifth-...

Critical response

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 98% approval rating based on 298 reviews, the highest rated film of that year on the website, with an average rating of 8.70/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "An exciting, funny, and poignant adventure, Up offers an impeccably crafted story told with wit and arranged with depth, as well as yet another visual Pixar treat." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 88 out of 100 based on 37 critics, i...

Accolades

Up won two awards at the 82nd Academy Awards, for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Score. It is the second of three animated features to have been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. Beauty and the Beast and Toy Story 3 were also nominated for Best Picture in their respective years. Up also won Best Original Score and Best Animated Feature Film at the 67th Golden Globe Awards. It was nominated for nine Annie Awards in eight categories, winning two awards for "Best Animate...

On May 26, 2009, a video game of the same namewas released for multiple platforms. Another video game, Kinect Rush: A Disney–Pixar Adventure, was released on March 20, 2012, for the Xbox 360. It features characters from five of Pixar's films: Up, The Incredibles, Cars, Ratatouille, and Toy Story. In 2018, a Lego The Incrediblesvideo game was released which featured several references to Up and its characters.

Dug Days

On December 10, 2020, on Disney Investors Day, an animated series taking place after the events of the film titled Dug Days was announced for Disney+. The series will focus on Dug and Carl as they reside in Suburbia. The series will premiere in the fall of 2021.