There are a lot of sequels in movie theaters these days, and you either love them or you hate them. Pixar hasn’t been immune to this trend, offering a handful of follow-ups over the years, returning us to the world of Cars and Toy Story. They’ve also got a solid lineup headed our way with Finding Dory, Toy Story 4, and The Incredibles 2. So naturally, fans of the studio’s films have been curious about when we’ll see continued stories from movies like Ratatouille, WALL-E, or Inside Out.
Well, it looks like like you’ll have to wait for quite a while for those sequels to hit theaters. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Pixar president Jim Morris said that the animation giant only has original films planned for the next several years after this round of sequels releases. The studio’s business model isn’t one to simply make grabby hands at sequels when a film performs well at the box office (which makes sense, because for them, “successful films” would be nearly everything). Instead, they only pursue the idea when the filmmaker behind the movie has a passion, vision, and an engaging story to tell. It also means when the studio takes on a story idea for a new film, that filmmaker is essentially off the table for any new projects until their current film is completed. For the time being, the concepts just aren’t there.
This is definitely a bummer to hear if you were really hoping to hear about Riley’s teenage years in Inside Out 2, or you wanted to check in on the humans in the universe of WALL-E. However, the silver lining is that Pixar takes sequels seriously. In a season where we’ve got a glut of follow up films, sequels, and prequels, it’s kind of refreshing to see a studio take a beat before continuing the story from a successful standalone film. You may have not loved every sequel you’ve seen from the studio, but you’ve got to respect the amount of thought and planning that goes into the follow up films. After all, they did a pretty fantastic job with the Toy Story movies, so we know they can make a franchise worth seeing. So maybe there aren’t more sequels in the works for them, but let’s not forget that just because it’s a good movie, a second (or third) film isn’t necessarily warranted. Some movies can be good all on their own. Plus, do we really need a movie showing us the confused, chaotic brain of a teenager? As a former teenager myself, I’m not sure we do.
How do you feel about Pixar sequels? Do you want to see more or less of them? Which do you think deserve a sequel? Let’s talk about it in the comments!
Image credit: PixarÂ
