Will Pixar Get Back on Track? What’s Happened with Pixar?

Will Pixar Get Back on Track? What’s Happened with Pixar? 

Over the last several days Pixar has been putting out quotes regarding their recent output of films and I wanted to share my thoughts on the matter. And answer the questions: Will Pixar get back on track? What’s been happening with Pixar over the last couple of years? 

• Pete Doctor’s Interview: This is the start of everything that Pixar has been talking about over the last couple of weeks. I’ve seen all sorts of different opinions on these quotes and wanted to share my thoughts. Pixar has been very up and down in quality as of late. They haven’t been on the same streak that they were on for 15 years. Their streak from Toy Story to Toy Story 3 is pretty incredible, their worst movie is probably A Bug’s Life, but that’s still a good movie. For me, it’s been five years since their last great movie, that would be Toy Story 4. That doesn’t mean they haven’t put out good movies, I’ve liked several of the films. But their overall quality wasn’t as high as it used to be. There’s been more misses and disappointments. There’s a number of different reasons for that, part of the reason is John Lasseter was fired from Pixar. John Lasseter was the head of Pixar during their fantastic streak of films. He was fired due to sexual harassment in the work place. Lasseter is one of the people responsible for Pixar’s hot streak, ever since he’s left the quality of Pixar is gone. Plus, the founder of Pixar left and Lee Unkirch left. All three of those people were at Pixar from the beginning, they helped with Pixar’s magic hot streak. Second, COVID messed the whole movie industry up. One of the faults with Pixar was they released three of their movies, Soul, Luca, and Turning Red on Disney+. So they trained audiences to just wait till streaming to watch movies, probably one of the reasons why Lightyear bombed. Because Lightyear bombed at the box office, it’s one of the reasons why Pixar wants to do more sequels. Lightyear lost Pixar a lot of money, I believe it’s their biggest box office bomb. Last year, Elemental did make back some money but not enough to balance the amount of money that Lightyear lost. So when I hear that Pixar wants to do more sequels, I’m not too surprised. The quotes about wanting to focus less on specific director’s personal stories and focus on more relatable films, I think he has a point but I can see why people get upset about that. I think an important thing to keep in mind, Pixar & Disney are a business. Due to COVID, they lost a lot of money, and their stocks went down. They’re trying to figure out ways to get their money back. When they announce that Toy Story 5 is coming in June 2026, I’m not surprised. The last two films in that Toy Story franchise made over $1 billion. So they know announcing another Toy Story movie will make them a lot of money. I think making films focused with a more broad audience is the better idea. Part of the problem with Turning Red was they made the main character a bit too niche for audiences to connect with. She’s a girl, going through puberty, learning about periods, living in Canada, living in a Chinese household, and loving boy bands. There’s a specific audience for that movie, it’s not accessible to a larger audience. If they want to make more money, making movies that are more widely accessible is a great way to do that. I get that would mean that the director's creativity and personal stories will get lost. But I think there’s a way to balance mainstream films and director’s personal stories. I think that’s also part of the problem with Soul and Luca, a bit too niche and not available enough for a more broad audience. 

• Finding Nemo & The Incredibles (possibly) Getting Reboots: In this same interview, Jim Morris the president of Pixar said one of the big things they’re considering is rebooting Finding Nemo and The Incredibles. Morris said in the interview that he thinks this will re spark some of the magic of the older days of Pixar. My thoughts on this are very similar to what I just talked about, Pixar is trying to get money back. They’re trying to figure out the best ways to make up the money they lost. While I don’t think it’s a great idea that they’re doing this, I can see why. The brands of Finding Nemo and The Incredibles are massive. At the same time, it’s a stupid idea. If they do this, if they actually go through with this and announce reboots of Finding Nemo and The Incredibles were happening, it’s just Pixar showing people that they threw in the towel. They’re giving up, they don’t know what to do next so they reboot their popular franchises. One of the things that Pixar was great at doing for 15 years was coming up with creative and fun ideas for movies. On paper a movie about a rat teaching a guy how to cook while pulling his hair sounds stupid, they made a great movie out of that. They made a great movie about an old man flying his house to a waterfall with balloons. That’s what made Pixar legendary for 15 years, that was the generation of movies that I grew up watching and loving. From 2011 to now, they haven’t had that same success. There've been some great movies in there, movies that I love but it’s not as legendary as it was from 1995 to 2010. If Pixar wants to make more money using the established IPs they have, why not give us Incredibles 3. D23 is happening in August, I hope they announce in June 2027 we’re getting Incredibles 3. I would much rather want a third Incredibles film rather than Toy Story 5. Incredibles 2 made $1.2 billion at the box office, it’s Pixar’s highest grossing film to date. A third film might make $1.2 billion, but it will make a lot of money. It’s a guarantee hit for Pixar. They don’t want to do that, they want to do a reboot of The Incredibles and Finding Nemo. But there’s nothing new for them to add, it feels like a cheap cash grab. 

• Andrew Stanton directing Toy Story 5: We’ve known for several months now that a fifth Toy Story film is happening. We got a release date a few months back in June 2026. A couple days ago, it was announced that Andrew Stanton is directing the film. Andrew Stanton has been working with Pixar for years. He’s one of the fundamental people of Pixar. He’s written several Pixar movies, including all four Toy Story movies. Plus A Bug’s Life, Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo, and Wall-E. He even directed Finding Nemo and Wall-E. When I hear he’s announced to direct the next film, I know he’ll make a great movie. The track record for Toy Story movies is pretty fantastic, even the worst one is still fantastic. Andrew Stanton was one of the people responsible for making those Toy Story films great, he wrote those films. But I hear this announcement and I also think it’s the safest pick that Pixar could have gone with. Pete Doctor was a director for Pixar for a long time, but now he’s the head of Pixar. So Andrew Stanton is the logical pick of their already hired and established directors to direct the film. There’s a side of me that loves that Stanton is coming back, because he’s worked in the Pixar system since the beginning. He knows how to make a great Pixar film, bringing in a familiar face is a great idea. Every Pixar director since Toy Story 4 has been a new face, a first time director for Pixar. That’s probably part of the reason why it feels like Pixar’s quality is down. Having Stanton direct the film, it’s almost a lock that it’ll be another great Pixar film. To me, it feels like the only reason why this movie is being made is because they know it’s going to make a lot of money. They know as soon as they put out a trailer for a fifth Toy Story film, it’ll get people excited. They know people will buy tickets for a fifth Toy Story film. It doesn’t feel like they have a great new idea for the Toy Story franchise, it feels like they just want money and this is how they’re doing it. They’re milking the Toy Story franchise for money. I don’t want them to do that, I want them to create new movies that are great. Sure, give us sequels. Let’s get rid of Toy Story 5 and drop Incredibles 3 in Toy Story 5’s 2026 release date. Next year, we’re getting Elio. It's an original film that I’m very excited about because it's an original Pixar film. And original Pixar is great Pixar, if Elio does well at the box office hopefully it’ll teach Pixar that we want more original films. 

General Thoughts: I love Pixar, Pixar is one of those things that was so fundamental for me in my love of movies. Like I said, Pixar in their prime is the era of movies that I grew up with. Wall-E was the first movie I ever saw in the theater, that movie means so much to me. When I was a little kid, Cars was my favorite movie of all time. I had all of the toys and watched the movie on loop. Because of that I loved Cars 2 as a kid, so many of Pixar’s films have a special place in my heart. Like I’ve said multiple times in this blog post, when Pixar is at their best is when they’re creating original films. When I hear these announcements from Pixar that they’re looking to make more sequels and reboot popular franchises, it feels cheap and lazy. I look at the announcement at Toy Story 5 and I think it’s a cynical attempt to milk the franchise to make more money. I don’t want that to happen, it makes Pixar this embarrassment now if that’s what they’re doing. Maybe the 2020s won’t be Pixar’s best decade, maybe in 2030 Pixar will be back on top and be fantastic.