This is the fifth Pixar film to have a female protagonist after Brave, Inside Out, Finding Dory, and Incredibles 2. This is the third Pixar film with a protagonist who wears glasses after Carl Fredricksen from Up and Joe Gardner from Soul, it is also the first of such with a female glass-wearer in the lead role.

However, as the Omicron variant cases rose, on January 7, 2022, the decision was made to shift the film from its theatrical release to its direct-to-streaming release on Disney+ as a Disney+ original.We really wanted our camera and choreography to capture the look and feel of videos from the late 1990s and early 2000s. Mei and Ming Lee's relationship is similar to another Pixar mother-child duo, Merida and Queen Elinor in Brave.

GROWING PAINS -- Disney and Pixar’s all-new original feature film “Turning Red” introduces 13-year-old Mei Lee, a confident-but-dorky teenager torn between staying her mother’s dutiful daughter and the chaos of adolescence. Mei arrives at the temple where she converses with the locals and meets with Ming and her more laid back father Jin. Artists borrowed the model of Massimo’s cat Machiavelli from Luca to create the exotic shorthair temple cats that frequent the Lee family temple. The Washington Post 's Michael O'Sullivan gave 4 stars out of 4 and concludes: "[The film] delivers a bigger, and in some ways more universal message: It's okay to not always be in control, to let your freak flag fly. Ming and Jin are impressed, but when Mei asks to go see 4*Town in concert they, or rather only Ming, say no.When Ming mistakes Mei for having her first period, when she actually turned into a red panda, she screams “It’s happening! When Mei draws/sketches Devon as a merman in her notebook, this is a reference to the dual sea monster nature of characters in Luca. It may also be a reference to a scene in Disney's 2016 film, Zootopia, when Nick Wilde touches Bellwether's wool on top of her head, and he comments "So fluffy. According to the "Making Of" video, the film had various developmental names, some of the pun-based title variety.

MOTHER’S NATURE – In Disney and Pixar’s all-new original feature film “Turning Red,” confident-but-dorky teenager Mei Lee is torn between staying her mother’s dutiful daughter and the chaos of adolescence. Says sets art director Kristian Norelius, “I think she’s been trying to live up to her mom’s expectations by having everything sorted and organized.And as if changes to her interests, relationships and body weren’t enough, she also “poofs” into a giant red panda at decidedly inconvenient times. Mei briefly reunites with her family and Jin tells that they have to perform the ritual again but Ming suddenly grabs her daughter and chastises her for disobeying her and being rebellious before proceeding to destroy stadium, endangering the lives of the 4*Town band group who are stuck at the wires in the process, and demanding everyone to go home. After Mei fled away, Ming, hurt and angered that her daughter would do this along with her mother and the aunts pushing her too far, loses control of her emotions, transforming into a Kaiju-sized red panda in the process.

She warns Mei however that the more she transforms, the harder it will be to encase the power, she advises Mei not to transform.Much like how Enrico Casarosa based Luca on his childhood in Italy, Domee Shi based this on her own childhood growing up in Canada and Ming Lee being based on her own mother. The scene where Mei turns into the giant red panda when she looks at the bathroom mirror and instantly freaks out is a reference to the 1985 comedy film Teen Wolf, when Michael J. Due to Disney+ being limited in most of Europe and Asia, the following countries are where Turning Red got a theatrical release: Albania, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Egypt, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Kenya, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Poland, Qatar, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, and Vietnam. Air Canada decorated an Airbus A220 with images of Mei and her "red panda form" to fly over Canada promoting the film, and also had a contest for the public to attend the premiere in Toronto and win special prizes. At school during dodgeball practice, all four girls reveal that they were unable to convince their parents to get them tickets as they are expensive.