Pixar Enters the Spirit World With Supernatural Adventure Ghost Market

Pixar’s Ghost Market follows a young boy into a supernatural marketplace inhabited by hungry ghosts and inspired by Asian folklore. / Disney / Pixar / Deadline

Pixar Heads Into the Supernatural With Ghost Market, Coming to Theaters in 2028

Pixar is getting ready to introduce audiences to a very different kind of afterlife with Ghost Market, a new original animated feature inspired by Asian folklore surrounding supernatural marketplaces where the worlds of the living and the dead collide.

Previously known as Ono Ghost Market during development, the project was officially presented at D23 under its new title, Ghost Market, with plans for a 2028 theatrical release.

The project reportedly began life as a potential series before Pixar shifted development toward a feature film, giving the studio another original theatrical property built outside its established franchises.

And this one is bringing some ghosts with it.

Welcome to the Ghost Market

The story centers on Kyle, a young boy whose family has forced him to relocate to Hawaii.

Footage shown at D23 begins with Kyle entering a dark and apparently abandoned kitchen. Despite nobody seemingly being around, he discovers a bowl of warm soup waiting for him.

Already strange.

Kyle eventually finds himself encountering the supernatural world of the Ghost Market, populated by what he describes as “hungry ghosts.”

But Pixar doesn’t appear to be abandoning its sense of humor just because things are getting spooky. Confronted by the mysterious marketplace, Kyle apparently has one particularly modern concern:

“Hey, do you guys take Apple Pay?”

Additional footage showed Kyle talking over FaceTime and attempting to explain exactly what he’s discovered, while making it clear that Ghost Market isn’t supposed to be one of “those other scary movies.”

We’ll see about that.

Pixar Takes on Hungry Ghost Folklore

The concept gives Pixar an opportunity to explore mythology that hasn’t traditionally received much attention in mainstream American animation.

Stories of hungry ghosts appear across several Asian religious and folkloric traditions, while supernatural markets and spaces where spirits interact with the living provide Ghost Market with a potentially massive world to explore.

For horror and fantasy audiences, the idea is especially intriguing.

Pixar obviously isn’t suddenly turning into a horror studio, but the company has never been afraid of introducing younger audiences to darker concepts. Monsters, Inc., Coco and even portions of Toy Story have demonstrated how effectively the studio can take ideas involving monsters, death and the unknown and filter them through accessible family storytelling.

Ghost Market could take that approach somewhere new.

The Hawaii setting also creates an interesting backdrop for Kyle’s introduction to this hidden supernatural world. With the character already dealing with being uprooted from his previous life, stumbling into a marketplace filled with hungry apparitions could turn that displacement into both a supernatural adventure and a coming-of-age story.

The Ghosts Arrive in 2028

Disney currently has March 10, 2028 reserved for an untitled Pixar release, although the information presented for Ghost Market only confirms its theatrical arrival sometime in 2028.

There is still plenty we don’t know about the project, including its voice cast and exactly how deep Pixar intends to venture into the supernatural mythology behind its premise.

But an original Pixar movie about a kid wandering into a mysterious marketplace populated by hungry ghosts?

That has our attention.

Ghost Market is coming exclusively to theaters in 2028.