Pixar: We're nothing but a sequel machine now
Yikes.
Pixar just announced that every hit of yesteryear is being considered for a reboot, with Finding Nemo and The Incredibles regarded as particularly strong candidates for new titles.
Pixar 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.
Pixar is confident enough in its sequels that it's giving Inside Out 2 a run of about 100 days in theaters, an extraordinarily generous amount of breathing room in the Age of Streaming.
In retreading characters and plotlines that have worked for Pixar in the past, the studio is breaking from a strategy, formulated about a decade ago, of favoring new ideas.
Its first film of 2024 was supposed to be an original: Elio, directed by Coco writer Adrian Molina, about a boy who becomes Earth's intergalactic ambassador.
But the writers' and actors' strikes forced Disney to push back Elio's release to 2025.
Pixas blames the pandemic for everything. The pandemic hit in January 2020. By summer 2021, most restrictions had been lifted.
Did Pixar alter its films to make them "streaming acceptable"? No, although some news articles imply they did.
Pixar is blaming the public: "Audiences are no longer used to going to the theater, and the pandemic taught them to only like super-action-thriller blockbusters, not the gentle and individualist stories we tell."
REALLY? Wow. If audiences turned on movie theaters and Pixar that fast, then maybe audiences didn't really like movie theaters and Pixar films to begin with.