Disney Dining Serving up the latest Disney Eats, Treats, News, and More!
To say that Disney and Pixar have been struggling at the box office lately would be an understatement. It seems that, no matter how hard the studio giants try, nothing seems to work. Despite the near-constant complaints of sequels and remakes, those seem to be the only films audiences want to see.
Original stories like Strange World (2022), Turning Red (2022), and Elemental (2023) all flopped at the box office, but live-action remakes like The Little Mermaid (2023) were a hit.
Pixar has always been known for its wonderful original stories, but with the box office flops, the studio has to ask itself, “Should we pull a Disney and focus more on prequels and sequels?”
Credit: Pixar Animation Studios
Related: Pixar “On Life Support” After String of Failures
Pixar President Jim Morris said that the company’s current plan is to rely on movies that audiences have grown to love, like Finding Nemo (2003). In an interview with Bloomberg, Morris spoke about how sequels will help the company turn things around.
Morris’ strategy to turn things around involves balancing original movie ideas with sequels and spinoffs, the better to remind audiences what they once loved about Pixar. Every hit of yesteryear is being considered for a reboot, with Finding Nemo and The Incredibles regarded as particularly strong candidates for new titles. Morris aims to make three movies every two years—historically it’s been closer to one a year—with every other title a sequel or spinoff and the rest standalone concepts or potential seeds for new franchises.
The same plan has been in motion at Disney as well. Disney CEO Bob Iger has been delaying multiple films on the company’s slate as the company puts renewed focus on quality control. The Mouse House has pushed back its controversial live-action remake, Snow White, by one year and its live-action remake of Moana (2016).
Credit: Disney
Pixar’s Chief Creative Officer, Pete Docter, said that new Pixar movies will also focus more on “commonality of experience” to appeal to a wider audience. That means we can expect fewer movies like Turning Red and more movies like Toy Story (1995).
After Lightyear lost millions of dollars in 2022 and Elemental had Pixar’s worst-ever opening-weekend performance the following year, “there was a real and intense period of self-scrutiny and feeling like we messed up in some way,” Docter says. Executives hosted postmortems to determine how to revitalize the studio, he recalls. They arrived at mentoring Pixar’s upcoming directors to focus less on autobiographical tales—Luca had been inspired by its director’s childhood in Italy; Turning Red, by its director’s relationship with her mother; and Elemental (which did gain some momentum overseas and online), by its director’s immigrant family. Pixar would instead develop concepts with clear mass appeal, many of which—in the case of sequels and spinoffs—had already been proven.
Credit: Pixar
Related: Disney and Pixar Make Huge Change to “Too Heavy” ‘Inside Out 2’
Disney and Pixar will face their first big test of the year in just a couple of weeks. On June 14, Inside Out 2 will be released in theaters nationwide. The highly anticipated sequel will see the return of the emotions that live in Riley’s mind — Joy (Amy Poehler), Anger (Lewis Black), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Disgust (Liza Lapira), and Fear (Tony Hale).
The film will also introduce some new emotions that will cause absolute chaos — Anxiety (Maya Hawke), Envy (Ayo Edebiri), Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser), and Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos).
Credit: Disney/Pixar
Inside Out 2 is expected to perform well at the box office, giving Pixar the confirmation it needs to continue to focus on characters audiences already know. It will also test how the studio can run after major layoffs left those who work at the animation studio fearing for their job safety. Nearly 14% of employees were laid off as Bob Iger looked to cut spending.
Do you think Pixar should focus less on original stories and more on sequels? Let us know in the comments!
