https://deadline.com/2023/02/frozen-...gs-1235253824/

This was pretty obvious at the end of Frozen 2

I thought that Zootopia was the very best thing that came out of any Disney studio since Pixar crushed it with the four-play of Ratatouille, Wall-E, Up, and Toy Story 3. And it ranked up there with all the aforementioned.

I have zero interest in seeing Zootopia 2. Or Frozen 3. And Toy Story 4 was the first film in the franchise that I only saw once in theaters. And never again. So Toy Story 5? Ugh.

And yes, Bobbi Flekman had it right with "Money Talks/Bullshit Walks" but of all these animated sequels that Disney has cranked out post TS3, many have been commercially successful but how many of them have actually been any good?

Cars 2 (2011)
Monsters University (2013)
Finding Dory (2016)
Cars 3 (2017)
Incredibles 2 (2018)
Ralph Breaks The Internet (2018)
Toy Story 4 (2019)
Frozen 2 (2019)

In my opinion they range from truly abysmal (Cars 2) to surprisingly really good (Finding Dory), although nothing disappointed me more than Incredibles 2 (decent but a pointless retread with a ho-hum story). Not one of them is a standout though. And most of them are pretty disappointing.

Will they finally let Elsa have a girlfriend?

I will say that I admired the second one for taking a pretty non-traditional approach to a Disney story (no real villain, more character focused, etc. ) . However, it was also a pretty dull movie all things considered, so probably not the best approach.

Iger: ". . . but this is a great example of how we’re leaning into our unrivaled brands and franchises."

Or leaning on them.

Iger is betting that audiences will respond to franchises/properties, but I think he's confusing them with shareholders. Audiences want movies that really resonate with them. Whether that's a brand/franchise or a new property depends on what the end result is, but looking at the list of sequels from above, I don't think it's working for them.

Ignoring the obvious "Build quality movies with great songs/stories/characters and the audiences will follow" argument -- which I believe in -- the only animated Disney/Pixar movies that have culturally budged the needle in the past decade have been Coco, Inside Out, Encanto, Moana, maybe Zootopia but that seemed to fly a bit under-the-radar despite its billion dollar grosses (sadly, as I think it's fantastic). I'm talking the songs, characters, etc. I wasn't even the biggest Moana fan but it was definitely a fresh approach and vision to what I felt were standard princess-empowerment tropes.

I just recently, finally watched part 2 and was severely underwhelmed. Elsa against the waves was a beautiful section but the rest just meandered all over the place. They really need to make sure they have the story right for this one.

Part 2 made $1.45B about 3 1/2 years ago and was pretty well reviewed and loved by young girls. That's why Part 3 is being made. P

I'm surprised it took them this long to realize this was still a strong IP. But, these movies take about 2-21/2 years to make. I know COVID derailed things in 2020, but they should have greenlit this in 2021 and they would have had it ready this year. Now they have to wait until like 2025 at the earliest.

Well, and let's not forget the merchandising aspect. Need to sell those toys.

Let it go.

Is this the Frozen 3 thread, or a Star Wars thread?

Yes.

Toy Story 4 was absolutely excellent. I was not looking forward to it as I thought the story was done. But what they did with that movie both from a story/theme as well as a visual/technical perspective was nothing short of amazing. I would also argue that Frozen 2 was an excellent movie. They could have easily phoned it in and made another princess movie but they went a wildly different route and dealt with some pretty deep themes for a princess movie sequel.

I totally agree with you that Incredibles 2 and Ralph Breaks the Internet were two of the most disappointing sequels. But I know that's a personal thing because I can't really even express why I didn't like them. They were technically and even critically successes and, in the case of the Incredibles, absolutely blew the doors off at the box office. I just didn't like them for some reason. For Ralph I think the switch from video games to the general internet was really disappointing especially when the Emoji movie already did that. They even had some of the same jokes.

You forgot Frozen itself. Also arguably Soul, Luca, Raya and Turning Red have been quite successful from a cultural POV. But if you're talking about absolute blockbusters/gems then I'd say that 6 movies over a period of 10 years is still something amazing and a lot of other studios would love to have that kind of output.

People like to point out that Disney keeps churning out sequels and remakes but ignore all of the wholly original output that they still produce. I think they've been doing a pretty good job of having a mix between the two. I also trust that they aren't going to churn out sequel after sequel just for a cash grab. They are pretty good about making sure that story takes precedence and if they don't have an idea for a good story they won't put out a sequel.

2026 release

Hope Elsa finally gets a girlfriend!

Di$ney is milking these cows for all that they can. Toy Story 3 was the perfect ending for the franchise IMO. It wrapped up the story of Andy and his toys very nicely. I never seen Frozen 2, but my kiddo watched it and said it was just "ok."

I watched Frozen 2 not that long ago and I just kept waiting for the story to kick into gear. Everybody was just doing little things here and there and suddenly it's the end of the movie.

I know everybody got sick of the first one, but it didn't just get popular because Elsa is a cool character - the story actually worked fairly well and kept you interested (remember how people said it was one of the better X-Men films?)

Now releasing in 2027… apparently being developed as a two part film.