The Good Dinosaur Reacts to the Halloween Asteroid (Disney Release)

Asteroid TB145’s near miss this morning showcases how Pixar Animation Studios filmmakers root movies in reality.

An asteroid just passed by Earth today, it was a near miss—if you consider 300,000 miles away a near miss (the moon is 238,900 miles from Earth). According to NASA, the asteroid, TB145, is estimated to be 2,000 feet wide and traveling at 78,000 miles per hour. The object could actually be a dead comet.

Peter Sohn, director of Disney•Pixar’s “The Good Dinosaur,” says the event reminds filmmakers of the idea that launched the film, which hits theaters—so to speak—on Nov. 25, 2015. Says Sohn, “This whole thing started off with the idea: What if the asteroid that theoretically wiped out all the dinosaurs 65 million years ago missed? What would have happened? We had a lot of fun evolving the dinosaurs. Herbivores became farmers; carnivores became ranchers.”