Get ready for more Disney blockbusters: As Variety reports, Toy Story and Frozen sequels are in the works at the House of Mouse.
Disney CEO Bob Iger announced plans for the animated films on February 8th during the company’s Q1 2023 earnings call. He also revealed news of a Zootopia sequel and a new Avatar-themed development at Disneyland. Whether the franchises’ stars will return for the sequels has yet to be revealed.
Toy Story has had four proper films since the original Pixar project dropped in 1995. Toy Story 4 arrived in 2019, while Lightyear, a spinoff film about main character Buzz Lightyear, arrived last summer. For that film, Chris Evans voiced the titular character that Tim Allen made famous.
Frozen, meanwhile, launched in 2013, and spawned one sequel in 2019. Kristen Bell and Idina Menzel star in the franchise, which left off with Menzel’s Elsa traveling to forests and seas outside her snowy home kingdom of Arendelle. Both Frozen movies, as well as Toy Story 3 and 4, rank among the highest-grossing films of all time — a noteworthy fact, since Iger used the same call to announce that 7,000 Disney employees would be laid off after streaming service Disney+ suffered a massive loss of 2.4 million subscribers.
Recent Disney films have underperformed compared to the company’s older classics. As opposed to Frozen II, which made over a billion dollars worldwide, last year’s Strange World grossed a measly $73 million, while 2021’s Encanto grossed $256 million worldwide. Clearly, Iger’s bringing in the big animated guns for the company’s latest financial lull.
