Animated sequels for the Toy Story, Frozen, and Zootopia franchises are in growth at Disney. Throughout the firm’s Q1 earnings name, held early Thursday, returning CEO Bob Iger confirmed the information, proper after saying its huge 7,000 worker layoffs as a cost-saving measure. “As we speak I am so happy to announce that we have now sequels within the works from our animation studios to a few of our hottest franchises, Toy Story, Frozen, and Zootopia,” Iger stated within the name. “We’ll have extra to share about these productions quickly, however it is a nice instance of how we’re leaning into our unrivalled manufacturers and franchises.”
At the moment, the Toy Story franchise contains of 4 motion pictures and a spin-off title referred to as Lightyear, which targeted on the titular house cadet Buzz Lightyear as a human as an alternative of a toy. Whereas the latter underperformed on a business degree, every of the mainline entries noticed essential and business success, with each Toy Story 3 and Toy Story 4 managing to cross the billion-dollar (about Rs. 8,267 crore) threshold. Toy Story 4, specifically, was topped Greatest Animated Function on the 2020 Oscars, alongside a nomination for Greatest Unique Music in Randy Newman’s ‘I Cannot Let You Throw Your self Away.’ To not point out, the unique 1995 Toy Story, was Pixar’s first fully-realised computer-animated movie.
2013’s Frozen boosted Disney into a brand new path of success. Having received two awards on the 2014 Oscars — Greatest Animated Function and Greatest Unique Music — and changing into one of many US’ best-selling Blu-ray discs, it spawned a few animated shorts, adopted by a feature-length sequel in late 2019. Frozen 2 grossed $1.45 billion (about Rs. 11,981) on the international field workplace, in opposition to a manufacturing finances of $150 million (about Rs. 1,239 crore).
In the meantime, Zootopia, an animated buddy cop comedy that includes anthropomorphic animals, additionally managed to cross the $1 billion mark, with a finances just like that of Frozen 2. Whereas the franchise by no means obtained any theatrical sequels — till now — bits of lore had been explored within the direct-to-streaming Zootopia+, which consisted of six brief episodes. It is sensible for Disney to financial institution on established franchises, seeing as their current unique IPs did not fare too effectively commercially. The latest instance could be Unusual World, which solely managed to tug $73.4 million (about Rs. 607 crore) globally, in opposition to a reported finances of $180 million (about Rs. 1,487 crore).
As said earlier than, this information was damaged after CEO Iger introduced layoffs for as much as 7,000 staff on the firm, representing 3.2 p.c of Disney’s headcount. The choice has been made in an effort to attain about $5.5 billion (about Rs. 45,444 crore) in value financial savings and make its streaming enterprise worthwhile. Iger was introduced again on board in November underneath a two-year contract, as a method to guide the leisure large again to its full potential. On the time, the CEO confirmed that he would uphold the hiring freeze that ex-CEO Bob Chapek had put in place.
At the moment, Toy Story 5, Frozen 3, and Zootopia 2 haven’t got confirmed launch home windows.
