Almost a year ago, Pixar announced a slew of new films, four of which were sequels. While Finding Dory has smashed the box office, and we’re expecting nothing but good things from Toy Story 4, The Incredibles 2 and Cars 3, those could be the last Pixar sequels for a while.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Pixar president Jim Morris said the company will focus its efforts on new, original films instead of sequels — at least for the time being. “Everything after Toy Story and The Incredibles is an original right now,” he said.
For those of us who were patiently waiting for an Inside Out 2 or second Wall-E, we’ll have to wait even longer — if we get those sequels at all. Morris seems unsure about the future of Wall-E in particular, though we do have a little hope for Inside Out and Ratatouille.
“Pete Docter [who directed Inside Out] has an original idea for his next film. Brad Bird, being the director of Ratatouille, is working on The Incredibles and we haven’t really spoken about [a sequel to] that. And WALL-E is close to my heart since I produced it. It would be good to [go] back and visit that world and let everybody know that the humans actually survived again after getting back to their burnt-out planet. But that was really a love story that had its beginning, middle, and end, so we’re not really planning any further stories in those worlds at this point.”
Pixar has stuck to schedule with their sequels. They had originally planned to do a sequel every other year and an original every year; however, they moved the schedule around and the sequels ended up coming right after another. Though the order of release is different, the number of planned sequels and originals remains the same. Still, this feels really sad that we’re going to have to wait so long to find out what happens when some of our favorite stories continue.
“Most studios jump on doing a sequel as soon as they have a successful film,” said Morris. “But our business model is a filmmaker model, and we don’t make a sequel unless the director of the original film has an idea that they like and are willing to go forward on.”
Way to break our hearts, Pixar. You didn’t even have to write a painfully sad movie where some inanimate object dies an emotional death this time. Toy Story 4 isn’t even out yet, and we’re sad. Thanks.
