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Pixar's Next Three Films Will Be Sequels
brumgrunt writes "Should we be worried? As Pixar, with Up, once more proves itself to be home to some of the most original and daring blockbusters on the planet, the news that its next three films are likely to be sequels — with the confirmation of Monsters, Inc. 2 — gives cause for concern. Are commercial pressures catching up with one of our most inventive movie companies?"
You shouldn't worry. Shut up and get a life.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
...either sequels or remakes?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
And sequels are safer bets.
Or this is just speculation and/or distorted information as the result of a long game of telephone, like the content of most articles you find posted on slashdot these days.
Assuming Pixar's "competition" will continue to be such "gems" as Madagascar 2, Ice Age 2 or whatever Shrek sequel is coming down the pipeline, there's nothing to worry about. Now if John Lasseter leaves, then we might be able to talk about Pixar going downhill.
Freedom is drinking a beer in the park when you're supposed to be at work.
The next three films are likely to be sequels? The article doesn't even make that claim. The person who wrote the summary likely thinks tha Pixar just "pops out" these films. In fact, they usually take about 4 years.
A cat can't teach a dog to bark.
Sigh.
First of all, Pixar has two announced films not mentioned here - The Bear and the Bow and Newt - both of which are original properties. Bear and the Bow is slated to share 2011 with Cars 2, and Newt is set for 2012.
Second of all, the suggestion that the "most likely" date for Monsters Inc 2 is 2012 is tenuous at best. The only time in the last decade Pixar has had a director do two films with only three years in between is when Brad Bird did Ratatouille three years after The Incredibles, and that was him coming on a film in mid-production. If Docter is directing it, it would be surprising to see it before 2013.
This story, in other words, is nonsense - the only actual content to it is that there's a sequel to Monsters Inc.
Philip Sandifer's academic website
I get the impression that they're fairly well insulated from Disney's pressure. I think Disney realizes that they were digging themselves into a big hole with their own crummy animated movies leading up to the time when they bought Pixar. "Wall-E" took a lot of commercial risks, with the long, no-dialog intro and the overt political satire. "Up" dismayed the marketing types by having almost no merchandising opportunities (want to buy action figures of an old guy or a chubby boy scout?). Basically they've been putting the story first, and it's actually been a real winning strategy for them in commercial terms. Making some sequels doesn't necessarily equate to being commercial sell-outs; it depends entirely on whether the sequels are good, which we have no way of knowing about right now.
I'd watch for the big pressure toward commercialism to happen if and when Pixar makes its first big box-office flop.
By the way, Pixar-style CG movies are kind of a unique and interesting example of a purely digital form of entertainment that absolutely can't exist without copyright laws. If copyright was abolished tomorrow, we'd still have garage bands, we'd still have (low-budget) movies, and we'd still have novels (which most novelists don't make enough profit from to live on anyway). But a CG movie is an art form that by its nature requires a very large budget. It's not the render farm, it's the incredible number of hours of labor that go into those movies.
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I'm OK with sequels as some do indeed surpass the original.
And while I don't love every Pixar movie, their worst effort is still much better than everyone else. I will admit that Kung Fu Panda was a pleasant surprise from DreamWorks, but I trust them less with the sequel.
Monsters, Inc. is my 2nd favorite Pixar film behind The Incredibles, so I'm jazzed.
I am my own gestalt.
See the trend? (and including the world releases follows the same trend). And I'm not including marketing costs, which can be nearing the cost of the movie.
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Hell, Fast and Furious released outside of summer timeframe and has hit 154mil with a 80mil cost, that's a 74mil US profit and still growing and it's definitely not oscar winning material. Now you know why crappy movies continue to dominate the scene. Show some T&A (thrill and action? ;) ) and the crowd forms.
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Yeah, don't worry, cause Dreamworks is in the same boat, as they discovered sequels cost more (just look at the Shrek series), Pixar will obviously come to the same conclusion. 3D (and real 3D) animation has just become just too expensive. Why? cause their employees think like IT: you need to constantly upgrade: cooler tools, faster computers, more editing, more realism, more challenges for the sake of keeping things fresh and innovative, like technology itself. Perfection is the motto of the tower of Babel. Which is ironic in a business where a simple, ingenious story can do wonders [with low-tech]. And some T&A doesn't hurt too (\tongue out\>
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I'd be interested to see how Princess and the Frog turn out...
I'm waiting for "Charm" and "Strange".
Your numbers are swapped for Finding Nemo. Also the profits aren't as slim as they seem.. Finding Nemo made $864 million worldwide. Yeah their profits are falling (coincidence probably) but those are profits. If you're making money ahead of inflation then you're alive.
Disney isn't calling the shots. Part of the deal between Disney and Pixar was junking the low-quality Toy Story 3 that Disney had in production. Pixar said regardless of how much money was already invested in it, they wanted it thrown out the window. In turn, Pixar agreed to make their own version up to their standards. And you know what, the Toy Story 3 teaser definitely has Pixar charm. Disney sequels are terrible. All Pixar has done is CONSISTENTLY put out high quality films.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Finding Nemo worldwide revenue $864 mil.
Cars worldwide revenue $461 mil.
Monsters, Inc worldwide revenue $525 mil.
The Incredibles worldwide revenue $631 mil.
Ratatouille worldwide revenue $621 mil.
Wall-E worldwide revenue $534 mil.
Up worldwide revenue (not launched internationally) 149 mil.
I don't see Pixar being in trouble at all, this is very solid business and seems to me very predictable above $500mil. per movie business. All figures from wikipedia.
When was the last time you got an Anthony Hopkins figure with a cheeseburger and fries?
I'd expect an Anthony Hopkins figure to be served with some fava beans and a nice chianti.
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
You clearly have not seen Up.
US box office gross is an afterthought. Cars, for example, grossed over $461million worldwide, made a fortune in DVD sales, and made over $5 billion in merchandising, according to the article. Disney's $120 million investment returned over $5.5 billion, I doubt they're losing any sleep over The Fast and the Furious' $80 million budget.
I give Disney/Pixar credit for releasing imaginative films like WALL-E and Up knowing they'd make far less in merchandising and DVD sales. They would be crazy (incompetent in the eyes of their investors) if they failed to produce films capable of generating billions in revenue. And who's to say the sequels will be any worse than the originals? Toy Story 2 was one of Pixar's better films.
Or Wall-E or Ratatouille, for that matter.
Yes, my thought too. It's much easier to see a trend over time when you ignore the last three data points, isn't it? :)
First of all, you can't ignore foreign box office totals. These days, foreign gross can be 60-70% of a movie's total take, especially for animated movies.
Second, DVD sales dummy! DVD sales for Pixar movies are always relatively higher than other types of movies, because they're intended to be enjoyed by children. A family with a bunch of kids might not plop down $50-60 bucks to take the brood to the theater, but they'll spend $18 bucks on a kid's DVD to get the little bastards to shut up for 90 minutes.
Pixar is not in trouble, in fact they're one of the most consistently profitable studios in history. Dreamworks is somewhat in trouble, but not because of Shrek 3. Seriously? That movie will probably bring in over $1 billion in its lifetime, if it hasn't already.
You obviously have no idea what you're talking about.
Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan, Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back [...]
Well, yes, but it's slightly different.
Star Trek and Star Wars were essentially about the stories. The characters don't grow and change and learn much during the stories--they are who they are. But they're fun characters and we want to see their further adventures.
Oh Lord, now I have to don my SCI-FI nerdery hat.
I disagree! I think that the characters grow and change quite a bit through both movies.
In Star Trek II, Kirk confronts his feeling about aging; how giving up the captain's seat and directing StarFleet Operations left him just feeling old (Shatner was 51 at this point) and eventually only commanding the Enterprise is where he feels young again. His mid-life crisis is to leave the admiralcy that he worked for the sit in the captain's chair again, something that Spock is all too willing to allow. At the end he loses his best friend and constant companion, and in the sequel he destroys his career in StarFleet (at the time he expected a long jail sentence) to find a way to save Spock.
Let's take the character of Han Solo from Empire Strikes Back. At the start he's simply a mercenary -- tagging along with the rebels for awhile, but really the only reason he sticks around is that he's infatuated with Leia. By the end of the film he falls in love with Leia, chooses to sacrifice himself entirely, joining his friends and the rebels instead of taking the bounty that Jabba put over his head (which is why he gets shipped back to Jabba's palace instead of staying with Lando). Luke spends pretty much the entire Empire Strikes Back learning the ways of the force, finding out his relation to Vader.. he's a much much different character at the start of Return of the Jedi than he is at the end of Star Wars.
Those two movies are about stories, but some characters go through profound changes along the way..