The Most Successful Pixar Sequels Of All Time

Sequels don’t typically have a great reputation, most of the time they are inferior to the original movies. When a sequel turns out to be better than the original, it’s a newsworthy topic and becomes a highly regarded film in general. Take Spider-Man: No Way Home… the audience reception to that Marvel movie in comparison to Spider-Man: Far From Home and Spider-Man: Homecoming was absolutely mind blowing. Pixar sequels also have a reputation of being notoriously worse than their predecessors, but there were a few that slipped through the cracks of the stereotype. Let’s talk about the most successful Pixar sequels of all time.

3. Toy Story 2

Though Toy Story 3 ended up being slightly more successful in the box office than Toy Story 2 (with a difference of $388.3 million), for the sake of simplicity, I’m going to stick with direct sequels. After the massive success of Toy Story in 1995 with the introduction of computer animation, it was only a matter of time before Pixar began building upon this new direction.

The film was shown for the very first time to an audience of students on November 12, 1999 at CalArts. On November 13, the official premiere was held at the El Capitan Theatre. Just 11 days later, it was released to the public on November 24, 1999. Though it came out close to the end of the year, it rocketed to the top of the box office charts, and became the highest grossing animated movie for that year. It ranked #4 overall for 1999, just below Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, and just above The Matrix. With a budget of $90 million, it raked in $245 million domestically over a span of about 4.5 months. It made $487 million internationally. Suffice to say, Pixar made their money back with this film. Toy Story 2 stands at #16 overall for all Pixar movies.

Toy Story 2, Woody, Bullseye, and Jessie. Image from: https://abc.com/shows/coming-to-disney-plus/news/disney-plus-updates/watch-toy-story-2-now-streaming-disney-plus

Toy Story as well as Toy Story 2 was highly acclaimed by critics - with an overall positive response from all audiences. Something that a lot of animation studios, including Disney, tend to do is reuse existing pieces of animation that they already have, or use old drafts from other movies that were never used. Pixar did take parts of the original Toy Story draft that never made it into the film, including the idea of Wheezy, the trash can scene, and the opening Buzz scene. The first version of Toy Story 2 was going well animation wise, but with changing producers and lead staff, the story wasn’t what they wanted it to be. Disney refused to allow Pixar to push back their release date to start over again, but instead of releasing something they weren’t proud of, they scrapped it and made the whole new version in just 9 months. It was an absolutely daunting task for the whole team, but as we see in the end, it was worth it.

“[Toy Story 2] does what few sequels ever do: Instead of essentially remaking an earlier film . . . [it] delves deeper into its characters while retaining the fun spirit of the original film . . . As with the original film, Toy Story 2 is a meditation on friendship and fears of abandonment.’”

— Kirk Honeycutt, Hollywood Reporter

Buzz Lightyear Toy Story 2 opening sequence. Image from: https://twitter.com/aniqrahman/status/1249487194055675907

2. Finding Dory

Finding Dory was a dark horse for the studio, and a fairly risky move on their part to produce a sequel for to a beloved original movie 13 years later. It was the foundation of Finding Nemo and the timelessness it possesses that launched Finding Dory into orbit. Finding Dory was released on June 17th, 2016. It was the only film released that year, which was the 30th anniversary year for Pixar.

Finding Dory ranked as the #1 highest grossing film in 2016. Followed after Finding Dory was Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, and Captain America: Civil War. With a budget of $200 million, it brought in $486 million domestically, and $1,028,570,942 billion internationally. It ranks #4 overall for Pixar films and #43 on the list of highest grossing films of all time.

Finding Dory, Baby Dory. Image from: https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2016/06/20/finding-dory-secret-stars-baby-dory-gerald-sea-lion/86047762/

Finding Nemo director Andrew Stanton, as well as cast members including Ellen DeGeneres, were not closed off to the idea of creating a Nemo sequel right after the 2003 release. But as the negotiations with the Disney contract had crumbled and with the opening and subsequent closing of Circle 7 Animation, it just wasn’t at the top of the priority list. It was brought back into play in 2012 when it was officially announced it would be in the works with the original lead cast. An important factor that would have really changed the audience perception if it was left unchanged was the ending of the film. Finding Nemo dealt with minor themes of animal cruelty and captivity, mostly in the dentist office scenes. With the new setting of the film being a marine life institute that emulated the problematic SeaWorld, Pixar needed to ensure that they weren’t promoting or encouraging animal captivity. So, instead of the original ending being a "happy” one where they all reconvene at the institute, the ending shows the fish being able to escape into the ocean.

“This movie feels to me kind of like old school Pixar in the sense that it sits almost harmoniously next to Nemo in terms of tone and humour and emotion.”

— Lindsey Collins

Finding Dory. Image from:https://jonnegroni.com/2016/06/17/pixar-theory-finding-dory/

1. Incredibles 2

Be honest, was anyone surprised that Incredibles 2 would be at the top of the list of Pixar sequels? I know when I first watched it, I immediately knew it was better than the original… which doesn’t happen often. The focus on Helen, the family elements, the twist in villains, it was a recipe for success.

Incredibles 2 was released on June 15, 2018, with a budget of $200 million. It ranked #3 for 2018’s highest grossing films, just under Black Panther and Avengers: Infinity War. It ranked higher than Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, and Deadpool 2. It brought in $608 million domestically and $1,243,089,244 billion internationally. It ranks as the #1 Pixar film overall so far, and #19 on the list of highest grossing films of all time, just under Beauty and the Beast (2017). Director Brad Bird has received many praises for both the original and the sequel, from reviewers and from the cast.

“What Bird has managed to do, with a couple of kids’ cartoons, is to revive the modernist thrill.”

— The New Yorker

Incredibles 2. Image from: https://ew.com/movies/2018/06/17/incredibles-3-potential-brad-bird/

Though there was a whole 14 year difference between the 2004 release of The Incredibles and the 2018 sequel, the film wasn’t worked on during that whole time at all. Especially in the beginning when the computer animation technology was still being perfected, it would take Pixar 4-6 years to create a film. However, with Incredibles 2, it wasn’t until 2015 that Brad had began writing the story for it. The original release date was set to be in June 2019, but the studio was also simultaneously working on Toy Story 4, set to be released in June 2018. With the confidence of Brad in his newly sculpted story and the hesitation with the Toy Story team, it was decided that the 2 films would swap release years, which consequently gave The Incredibles 2 even less time to be worked on. Despite this sudden rush to finish, Incredibles 2 became a phenomenon that people are itching to get more of.

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