After the announcements of the last weeks, from San Diego Comic-Con and Disney's very own D23 event, it's not an exaggeration to say that Disney is playing it safe. Extremely safe. Leaving aside the re-introduction of Robert Downey Jnr into the MCU – this time as high-profile villain Dr Doom (it could work) – we have a perfect avalanche of films in some way based on previous hits coming up from Disney and Pixar. We are getting prequels, sequels, and worst of all, live-action remakes of animated classics. Like many a commentator, I've been shaking my head and muttering about the death of creativity and the lack of original content.
Except – maybe some of us, including me, are being just a little bit hypocritical? The other week, I saw a youtuber scoffing about the supposed "sequel fatigue" and pointing out how well sequels overall were doing at the box office. As he was talking about DreamWork's upcoming Shrek 5, I couldn't relate a hundred per cent (I have little interest in Shrek 5 unless Shrek and Fiona are made to face the consequences of callous pet-killing). Nevertheless, the youtuber was on to something. Because as much as I may groan over upcoming titles like Frozen III and Toy Story 5, I'm still going to watch them, aren't I?
Disney has had a rough couple of years, so I can see why they want to refill their coffers with safe bets. They may be well aware that people aren't over-enthusiastic about their upcoming animated projects. But we, the potential audience, don't have to be over-enthusiastic. We only have to be interested enough to buy a cinema ticket. I would guess – it's only a guess, mind – that this is what Disney's banking on. We can complain all we want about unoriginality, as long as we pay up.
There are some flaws in the reasoning, however. One is that Disney has created its own worst rival in Disney Plus. If people are only lukewarm about a film project, but nevertheless want to see it, they could simply wait until the film is available for streaming. Let's face it, if they're mouseheads (I don't know if it's a word, but I'm coining it) like me, they probably have Disney Plus anyway. All they need to do is wait. The studio has been lengthening the time it takes for their movies to reach Disney Plus, which is probably wise from a cinema point of view, but could hurt their streaming service in the long run. It's a bit of a bind.
Another purely commercial reason to keep experimenting with new stuff, instead of merely relying on tried-and-true franchises, is that both Disney and Pixar need to establish new franchises which they can milk in the future. Inside Out 2 has been a huge hit for Pixar, not least because it's seriously good (I'll come back to that). But there wouldn't be an Inside Out 2 if Pixar hadn't taken a chance on the first Inside Out many years back instead of simply churning out Toy Story sequels.
So I'm still a little worried about where the Mouse is heading long-term, even if they manage to consolidate their finances in the immediate future. A successful company always has to ask itself "what's next?" in order to stay in business. Even the most popular franchise reaches its sell-by date (I think Toy Story's already there, to be frank), and if Disney spends too little time developing new projects, they may find themselves in trouble again in a few years' time.
All the same, just because something is a sequel or a prequel doesn't mean it's bad. Look at Inside Out 2, a perfect delight of a film which managed to explain something I'd wondered since the first trailer: why Anxiety is its own emotion separate from Fear. I still think Inside Out 2 dodges the question of what puberty is really about; for all its faults, Turning Red was more honest about this. But hey, Riley is only thirteen in Inside Out 2. Maybe we'll get Love or Desire in Inside Out 3, which will surely be coming along at some point. And if overly cute Envy in Inside Out 2 grows up along with Riley to be less aspirational ("I want her hair") and more destructive ("I'll destroy her for being better than me"), then I'll not complain.
At the end of the day, for the audience, the big divide isn't between old franchises and new projects, but between high-quality and lower-quality films. Even easy-to-please customers like me cut up rough if we sense that we're being taken for granted. If the upcoming Disney and Pixar sequels and prequels seem tired and stale, they'll most likely underperform at the box office. If on the other hand the studios keep putting the effort into them that went into Inside Out 2, the Mouse should be fine. For now.
