4
Credit: PixarPixar Animation Studios had a better year than most branches of Disney, but it still seems to be feeling the pressure to come up with a historic first to bring audiences back to theaters.
In a year full of box office flops for the Walt Disney Company, which includes The Marvels (2023), Wish (2023), and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023), Pixar had one of the few success stories: Elemental (2023). Although the animated romantic comedy (directed by Peter Sohn) premiered to disappointing grosses, it managed to stick around in theaters and became a sleeper hit. Eventually, Elemental grossed nearly $500 million worldwide.
Related: Disney Seemingly Explains “Pixar Shared Universe Theory” With Latest Epic Crossover
But now Pixar has the unenviable role of being one of the few high-performing arms of Disney, now that Lucasfilm, Marvel Studios, and Walt Disney Animation Studios have been falling down on the job. According to industry insiders, the plan is to do something historic for Pixar: a full-blown musical.
Although it has not yet been confirmed by Disney, popular entertainment industry figure @danielRPK reports that the next Pixar film will be titled Ducks, and will be the first actual musical for the animation studio. While elaborate song and dance scenes are a mainstay of Disney animation, Pixar has surprisingly never done a full-blown musical, even if songs like “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” have been key to the studio’s success since the first Toy Story (1995).
The plots of Pixar movies like Coco (2017) and Soul (2020) have rotated around diegetic music (that is, music that occurs within the narrative and can be heard by characters in it), but the reality-breaking nature of musicals is a new one for the studio.
There are no details yet available for Ducks, but an artist’s interpretation of the animation says it could look something like this:
Interestingly, Illumination, one of the main competitors to Pixar, very recently released Migration (2023), an animated film about ducks going on an adventure and learning some life lessons along the way, which it is fair to say will likely be a big aspect of Ducks. Migration was a decent success at the box office, so Ducks already has a competitor to defeat.
Related: Disney Serious About Pixar Cuts: Is ‘Toy Story 5’ in Trouble?
All that said, Pixar is trying something new with Ducks, which is a promising sign for the future. Studio chief Pete Docter has openly said that audiences are not responding to their movies in the same way that they used to and that animators need to return to their roots, presumably re-learning the lessons of Toy Story and Finding Nemo (2003).
At the same time, Disney CEO Bob Iger has announced a whole slew of franchise sequels, like Toy Story 5, Inside Out 2, and a number of Cars movies either in development or production. It is rarely a great sign for a studio to have to go back to the creative well that many times, but if Pixar is trying a musical for the first time, maybe it has some creative juice left.
What are your favorite Pixar movies, and should they get sequels? Tell us in the comments below!