Bloomberg Reports that Disney and Pixar are Relying on Sequels to Get them Back on Track

If anyone’s created any animated magic in the West, it’s Disney and Pixar. Although connected since 2006 (Pixar started off as an independent studio before being acquired by Disney), the two studios have had different policies for a while, but while they still release films somewhat independently, a balance has been found and it is now more difficult to tell a Disney production from a Pixar one; two decades ago, which is not t along, it was very easy to do. But, regardless of the magic and the historical importance, both studios have been struggling for a while now in the financial sense. Workers have been laid off, projects have been put on hold and their overall number has been reduced, while those that have been released are not doing that well at the box office.

This is an issue for both Disney and Pixar in general as the market seems to be in demand for something new, and according to a long report by Bloomberg, the two studios are hoping that the upcoming sequels might get them back on track, financially at least.

If you’ll remember, Pixar enjoyed a string of successes for decades before it all started falling apart in 2018, when the long-time studio head, John Lasseter, was forced to resign under a cloud of sexual misconduct allegations. After that, Soul, Luca, and Turning Red were all released on Disney+, and Pixar’s audience began to expect the movies on their phones instead of movie theaters, which certainly contributed to the financial issues, as Bloomberg reports. Then came Lightyear, a movie that impressed no one, and Elemental, a movie that, while not bad, was a proper box office bomb. You can check out the numbers yourselves:

The table above was based on the data from the Bloomberg article and our own research that updated it. As you can see, if we’re not counting sequels and prequels, the last original hit that Pixar had in its hands was Coco, which came close to the one-billion mark. Before that, it was Inside Out.

On the other hand, sequels have been doing great and in the last 15 years, four of them (Toy Story 3 and 4, Finding Dory, and Incredibles 2) all passed the mark, earning at least $1 billion worldwide. This is why the studio is hopeful that Inside Out 2, a sequel to the highly successful original movie that was released in 2015 (which also won an Oscar) might help them and earn close to $1 billion world wide, a success that Pixar has not had since 2019. In fact, the total combined gross of the six movies released after Toy Story 4 is just over $1 billion, which is a horrible financial result for Pixar.

It remains to be seen whether this formula will work out. Inside Out 2 is coming out soon and from what it seems, the movie is promising. The people at Pixar have also discussed a new Incredibles movie, and we also know that Toy Story 5 is coming out as well. As the strategy seems to be shifting, we are certainly going to get some new movies, and we hope that they are successful enough for Pixar to keep producing its magic.

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