More than one month after the release to worldwide theaters on June 17 of “Finding Dory,” the long-time-coming sequel to “Finding Nemo” shown in 2003, the latest animated film from Pixar Studios, has already netted $721 million at the box-office.
The box-office results of “Finding Dory” is actually more than $200 million short of the results of “Finding Nemo” 13 years ago as the latter earned $936.7 million then.
Although “Finding Dory” shall have additional profits from its video releases among other stuff, it is not likely to surpass its predecessor overall.
As a result, Pixar Studios may have come to a decision to stop producing sequels to its Disney animated films. They have three more animated films in the pipeline including “Cars 3,” and “Toy Story 4,” and “The Incredibles 2.”
Apparently, the animated studio partner of Disney shall be concentrating on original movies after the three films in the pipeline, which could be an indication that it would do so around 2018 or 2019, when “The Incredibles 2” is officially released to theaters.
The movie is set to hit global theaters on June 21, 2019, which is barely three years from today.
Using a filmmaker model
But according to Jim Morris, Pixar Studios president, there are other difficulties that they have to face to do sequels. He explained that most studios jump on doing a sequel as soon as they have a successful film.
He said that their business model is a filmmaker model and they don’t make a sequel unless the director of the original film has an idea that he or she likes and is willing to go forward with it, notes the Indian Express.
Morris pointed out that a sequel is even harder to do than the original because they have already a defined world and the expectations are so much higher that they can’t afford to be a disappointment at all.
The difficulty of coming out with a good sequel was proven back in 2011 when “Cars 2” only managed a Metacritic score of 57 and just 39% on Rotten Tomatoes, the lowest for any Pixar film, notes Movie pilot.
The director’s availability for the sequel is often a problem for Pixar.
Two original films in the pipeline
In addition to three animated sequels on its movie lineup, Pixar is also scheduled to release in 2020 two original animated films. Morris said that the two films are now in early development and highly likely to join the studio’s official release date schedule soon.
Pixar is still releasing the same ratio of original movies to sequels, though many of those sequels have all come at once.
Morris said that the company’s plan has been to make an original film every year and a sequel every other year. He explained that if they add the next films after the current ones, it will actually come out exactly that – seven sequels in a list of 21 originals – from the time that Pixar was acquired by Disney back in 2006.
Meanwhile, the superhero versus superhero plotline has become a fad among superhero movies these days that it would not hurt the sequel to the 2004 animated hit “The Incredibles” if they will also take on the same storyline, according to some rumors.
Previous speculations have been very consistent that it would be Jack-Jack, the youngest member of the superhero Parr family who shall become the main villain in “The Incredibles 2.”
Reports have it that Jack-Jack would be a rebellious teen who will turn against his family and shall even go head-to-head and square off with his older brother Dash.
Veteran Hollywood actor Samuel L. Jackson, who rendered the voice of Frozone in “The Incredibles,” has also been confirmed to return in the sequel and reprise his character.
In an interview, Jackson said that he is looking forward to how and what Jack-Jack turned into, giving an indirect hint that he may be privy to the plotline of “The Incredibles 2” which shall likely revolve around the youngest member of the Parr family.
I can’t wait for this movie. Love The Incredibles 1.