In an interview with Buzz Feed, Pixar president, Ed Catmull told us what to expect from Pixar from now on. He said the following:
“For artistic reasons … it’s really important that we do an original film a year. Every once in a while, we get a film where we want or people want to see something continuing in that world — which is the rationale behind the sequel. They want those characters, which means we were successful with them. But if you keep doing that, then you aren’t doing original films.”
This isn't entirely new news, though. John Lasseter said the same thing a while ago. But this shows that Pixar's ideas about their future has not changed a bit!
The article's author also says that the studio is trying to hold back on making sequels. However, this kind of contradicts another quote that is said from the interview, which says:
“We’re going to have an original film every year, then every other year have a sequel to something. That’s the rough idea.”
This could be interpreted in many different ways. On one hand, it may be that the 2nd film which is supposed to be released in 2017 will be a sequel. After all, that is 2 years after Pixar next sequel, Finding Dory. But if the 2nd 201 film is a sequel and they are planning on making sequels to something every year, are they pretty much saying that they will force a sequel every other year no matter whether or not the story is good? If that's the case, wouldn't that go against Pixar's rule of making a good story? And let's not forget what Bob Iger said. Also, Pixar's first 10 films only had one sequel in it. now, their slate is like this:
2010: Sequel
2011: Sequel
2012: Original
2013: Prequel
2014: Original
2015: Original
2015 (2nd half): Sequel
2016: Original
2017: Original
2017 (2nd half): POSSIBLE Sequel
2018: Original
5 sequels and 6 originals are very close in number. Is this pattern something we should be worried about? How did they go from 7 original films in a row to this?
But wait! Let's not make assumptions yet! We don't know whether or not the 2nd 2017 film will actually be a sequel. It could be that the 2nd 2017 film will be an original film and Bob Iger doesn't know what he's saying. After all, he did claim that there are no upcoming hand drawn animated Disney films when there clearly is going to be one. This could mean that Ed Catmull simply meant that they'll make a sequel whenever they feel they have a good story and not have one literally every other year. All we can do is wait for D23, where we will, hopefully, get some more details about Pixar's upcoming slate. Also keep in mind that this website only gives pieces of the full interview and in could be very possible that Ed Catmull said that they don't want to make many sequels
In the interview, Ed Catmull was also talking about carrying on Pixar's legacy after he and John Lasseter pass away. He said the following:
“How do you figure out how to pass the baton onto other people?” he says. “In some places they don’t do that. When Walt [Disney] died, he didn’t pass the baton to anybody else, and so they went downhill after that. So John and I take very seriously the fact that we need to get people up to the level where they can tell original films.”
What are your thoughts on this?
