Animated cinema's passion for sequels

Once upon a time, there was an animated production house that only churned out successes. Stories of lions in the savannah, crazy emperors, princesses with icy hands who could bend cold and snow to their will. If in 1937 Walt Disney surprised everyone with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the subsequent Pinocchio yielded less impressive earnings than expected, recovering with the arrival of the big-eared elephant Dumbo, and continuing with ups and downs over the following decades of its history. Classics that have reached us today, transcending time and space, put the The Walt Disney Company, founded in 1923, at a loss. It mattered little whether it was the whimsical Alice in Wonderland or the refined style of Sleeping Beauty, distinctive and admirable features of foundational animation films that, however, did not bear the expected fruits at the time of their release. Over the years, Disney managed to build a true empire, steadily growing despite occasional fluctuations, dominating the global landscape and box office revenues.

Then, as in many fairy tales, the villain appeared: Covid-19. It wasn’t solely the fault of the pandemic, which brought an entire sector to its knees along with all others, that determined the shift in Disney productions. However, it contributed to a gradual detachment from theaters, caused by both the change in viewer habits and the offered works. After all, as with all foretold disasters, there was a magnificent swan song. In 2019, the pre-pandemic year, the live-action of The Lion King achieved the highest grossing in history for an animated film — a paradox considering it was still a live-action of the 1994 classic, wasn’t it? Certainly — earning $1,662,020,819 worldwide and spawning a prequel ready for production.

And it is exactly here, after a series of financial disasters, that we always return. To sequels. Or prequels. Or spin-offs, origin stories, reboots. Even for animated films. This is evident from how, after a series of disappointing box office earnings (from Raya and the Last Dragon in 2021, influenced by Covid and simultaneous streaming release, to Strange World in 2022, to the centennial title for Disney, Wish), even a superpower had to make amends. Not that it hadn’t happened in other instances, such as between Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001), Treasure Planet (2002), and Home on the Range (2004), punctuated only by the success of Lilo & Stitch in 2002. That the ways of consuming content have changed even for animated feature films is undeniable, yet these films remain the ones that most successfully attract diverse audiences, particularly in age range. So much so that even some of these modest or disappointing films like Strange World or the less criticized but still not a blockbuster Encanto turned out to be the most-watched works on streaming platforms. In adapting its strategy, Disney started anew for 2024 based on streaming data, in a rush that changed ongoing plans for Mickey Mouse’s releases, finding a safe harbor in the sequel Moana 2. And so it proved to be.

After the flop of Wish, a film created to celebrate Disney’s centenary, Bob Iger took the most-watched streaming title of 2023, Moana (2016) by Ron Clements and John Musker, and decided to turn the series based on the film into a full-fledged sequel for cinemas. In 2020, Jennifer Lee, from September 2024 the former creative director of Walt Disney Animation Studios (replaced by Jared Bush), announced a musical series based on the character Moana in development for Disney+. But after the bitter disappointments, within a year, Iger announced, created, and released the reimagined and reworked story for the big screen, Moana 2, postponing the live-action adaptation of the same animated film — also in production — to 2026 and releasing the sequel at the end of 2024, pitting it against its cousin, Mufasa, marking a double Disney event during the holiday season.

What Moana 2's box office success demonstrates is that Bob Iger was right and that Disney is back at the top of the box office, with post-Christmas earnings placing the film at $882.5 million. The studio cares little that, from a creative perspective, the animated film is a disaster. The narrative is confusing—a clear sign it was intended to be divided into episodes—the seafaring adventure chaotic, and the absence of Lin-Manuel Miranda from the soundtrack is a loss to the film's imaginative impact. The operation conducted by Iger and Mickey Mouse is proof of a theory increasingly dominating the entertainment world: with the trajectory of Moana—for which a third installment now seems inevitable given the second's conclusion—it’s evident that not only the entire cinematic landscape but also animation itself is spearheading this industry trend.

The biggest success of 2024, moreover, is Pixar’s Inside Out 2, which has also become the highest-grossing animated film in history (sharing the podium with the mentioned live-action The Lion King and another sequel, Frozen II: The Secret of Arendelle). This sequel, too, followed a series of setbacks due to the pandemic and a lack of interest in titles like Onward and Lightyear. Incredible that, nearly a decade after 2015, a sequel was made despite director Pete Docter’s previous reluctance? No, it’s simply about revenue. If it had flopped, the blame would likely have fallen on relatively unknown director Kelsey Mann, an animator and writer of The Good Dinosaur. Thus, the future of animation seems destined to be filled with sequels, with two new Frozen installments scheduled—one for 2027 and another with an undetermined release date. Next year for Disney? Zootopia 2 and the live-action of Lilo & Stitch.

Disney is not the only company relying on familiar successes. January 1, 2025, begins with none other than Sonic 3, the continuation of the cinematic saga of the blue hedgehog that started in 2020 and continued in 2022, based on SEGA’s video games. Meanwhile, Pixar has to see what becomes of Elio, a new original title about a boy transported by aliens to become Earth's galactic ambassador, arriving early next year, before banking on already-planned sequels like Toy Story 5, The Incredibles 3, and Cars 4. Starting in 2026, original titles like Hoppers and Ducks will also be introduced.

While DreamWorks Animation won its 2024 gamble with The Wild Robot, based on Peter Brown's illustrated novel, for 2025, it already has plans with the live-action adaptation of How to Train Your Dragon and a sequel to the underwhelming but solid performer, The Bad Guys. The year ahead also sees the release of a live-action adaptation of Gabby’s Dollhouse, preparing for the highly anticipated yet daunting return of Shrek 5 in 2026. This fifth return for DreamWorks’ ogre, whose first installment debuted at Cannes in 2001 and won the first-ever Academy Award for animated films, suggests that instead of exploring uncharted creative territories, the industry feels compelled to retrace its old paths.

Challenging times, yet opportunities remain for stories beyond the major studios, proving that originality exists if cultivated. Netflix has shown this by supporting projects like Sony’s The Mitchells vs. The Machines (mentioning Sony also brings to mind the animated work on the Spider-Verse), Guillermo Del Toro’s historical reconstruction during WWII in Pinocchio, and festive narratives like Klaus. Works from Norway, such as Spermadeggon, an adult and sexualized version of Inside Out mixed with Once Upon a Time... Life, or Adam Elliot’s stop-motion film Memoir of a Snail, a Golden Globe nominee for 2025, also showcase the fertile potential of animation for boundless imagination.