With $381 million in the bank after just three weeks of release, Disney-Pixar's Finding Dory is not only on track to be the summer's highest-grossing film in North America but the animation studio's highest-grossing title of all time domestically (the current record holder, Toy Story 3, finished with $415 million in the U.S. and Canada). So does that mean we can expect Pixar to keep pumping out sequels to their old hits at the expense of original properties? Studio president Jim Morris says no.
“Most studios jump on doing a sequel as soon as they have a successful film, 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,” Morris told Entertainment Weekly (via Polygon) in an interview. “A sequel in some regards is even harder [than the original] because you”ve got this defined world which, on the one hand, is a leg up, and on the other hand has expectations that you can”t disappoint on.”
While Pixar currently has a trio of sequels (Cars 3, The Incredibles 2, and Toy Story 4) slated for release through 2019, the following two films from the studio will be original movies and Morris claims there are two other originals in “early development.” Pixar hits not slated for sequels include Ratatouille, WALL-E, and Inside Out.
“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,” continued Morris. “It would be good to 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.”
That said, after the Día de los Muertos-themed Coco hits theaters we'll have to wait until the very futuristic-sounding 2020 for the next Pixar original.