Pixar Plans New Film Every Year, A Sequel Every Other

The popular trend is to bash Pixar for ever doing sequels to their vast library of animated classics. Unless it's Toy Story, then nobody says anything. The reason seems to be that Pixar has taken to switching up genres with their follow-ups, like the spy flick that was Cars 2 or the frat house comedy that was Monsters University. Despite the complaining, it hasn't stopped Pixar from racking up #1 hits, nor has it really diluted the quality of the films in any consistent way. But perhaps they've heard the rumbling and decided to do something about it, anyway.

In a recent interview with Buzzfeed, Pixar president Ed Catmull revealed their new plan to alternate between original content and sequels....

Catmull: "We’re going to have an original film every year, then every other year have a sequel to something. That’s the rough idea."

He went on to add...

Catmull:  “For artistic reasons … it’s really important that we do an original film a year. Every once in a while, we get a film where we want or people want to see something continuing in that world — which is the rationale behind the sequel. They want those characters, which means we were successful with them. But if you keep doing that, then you aren’t doing original films.”

The demands of a parent company like Disney pretty much force Pixar to have to cash in on their most lucrative properties, but Catmull's overall rationale doesn't make much sense. While he says that the impetus behind the sequels is due to the genuine desire to continue a specific world, locking themselves into doing one every two years has nothing to do with creative inspiration. That doesn't mean they'll be bad movies, and if Monsters University is any example they could be great. All it means is that these sequels won't develop organically.

Pixar currently has a pair of original films coming up in the next two years: The Good Dinosaur opens in 2014, and Pete Doctor's Inside Out arrives in 2015. A sequel to Finding Nemo, titled Finding Dory, arrives on November 25th 2015