Disney Pixar Admits Uncertainty: "We Won't Make These Movies Anymore"

The future for Disney Pixar Animated Studios isn’t as certain as fans would hope.

There has been no shortage of iconic intellectual properties to come out of Disney Pixar over the course of the last few decades. The Toy Story franchise was the first film series to come out of Pixar, and it was followed up by many others, including Monsters Inc. (2001), Finding Nemo (2003), The Incredibles (2004), Cars (2006), Ratatouille (2007), WALL-E (2008), Up (2009), Inside Out (2015), and Coco (2017).

While Pixar has many well-established brands, like the ones named above, the studio has also spent time attempting to develop other characters and stories. Its most recent attempts, however, have fallen flat with audiences. Pixar had a streak of three films– Onward (2020), Soul (2020), and Luca (2021)– that were released directly on Disney+. The straight-to-Disney+ releases reportedly left animators with the studio “downtrodden,” and the hope last year was that Pixar’s new film, titled Lightyear (2022), would be enough to bring the studio out of its disturbing trend.

Unfortunately for Disney, that didn’t happen.

Lightyear, which was said to tell the story of the “real-life” Buzz Lightyear who inspired the toy, fell flat at the box office. The film had a massive $200 million budget but made just $226.4 at the box office. The film lost Disney millions, and it was met with plenty of controversy, especially over its decisions to include a same-sex kiss in the film and the decision to replace Tim Allen with Chris Evans. The box office bomb was so bad that Lightyear Director Angus MacLane was fired.

Now, Disney Pixar is facing similar problems yet again. Elemental, which was released this past weekend, had an abysmal box office. The film finished with the second-worst opening in Pixar history, with just a $29.6 million domestic opening. The only film with a worse opening was Pixar’s very first film, Toy Story, which was released back in 1995.

Amid these failures, a conversation between a Pixar Directing Animator and a fan has gone viral. Josh Spiegel shared the conversation on Twitter and said:

People are still having an embarrassingly hard time grasping that watching something on streaming doesn’t make studios that much money.

People are still having an embarrassingly hard time grasping that watching something on streaming doesn't make studios that much money. pic.twitter.com/rN0aWKVkR0

— Josh Spiegel (@mousterpiece) June 19, 2023

As you can see in the conversation, one fan said they believed there was value in seeing a film on Disney+, citing Encanto (2021) as an example. Unfortunately, that’s just not how revenue works for studios.

Cat Hicks replied, saying, “I am glad you like. watching these movies from your home but not seeing them in theaters unfortunately means we will not make these movies anymore.”

This is the reality. When a movie doesn’t do well at the box office, it doesn’t generate enough money and, as a result, will be considered a failure. Though some films end up getting another chance with a sequel even after failing at the box office, most of the time, this is not the case.

What do you think the future holds for Disney Pixar? Let Inside the Magic know in the comments!