We all know Pixar’s ingenuity. Every single film that the company creates we have a high expectation for; we want to see only the best and most creative movie out there besides all of Pixar’s other animated movies. For the most part, even the sequels (besides the Cars debacle) hold true to that same, ingenious sentiment. We believe that Pixar creates it’s own movies at it’s own pace whenever a sudden burst of inspiration comes to them.
However, recent news has revealed that instead of Pixar deciding to create a Finding Nemo sequel, Disney specifically asked Pixar to create a sequel- for purely business reasons.
This news recently came out in an interview with Finding Dory director, Andrew Stanton.
“There was polite inquiry from Disney [about a Finding Nemo sequel],” said Stanton, who is also a vice president at Pixar, in an interview with The Los Angeles Times. “I was always ‘No sequels, no sequels.’ But I had to get on board from a VP standpoint. [Sequels] are part of the necessity of our staying afloat, but we don’t want to have to go there for those reasons. We want to go there creatively, so we said [to Disney], ‘Can you give us the timeline about when we release them? Because we’d like to release something we actually want to make, and we might not come up with it the year you want it.’… It’s more often that somebody fails at a sequel than they succeed. You don’t want it to be derivative or redundant.”
It is completely understandable that Disney wants to make a Finding Nemo sequel, I mean, look at Disney World. About 50% of that park is Nemo related. However, it is a little depressing that this movie was made for strictly business reasons, rather than the guarantee of a original, amazing story idea. At least Stanton is attempting to ensure a good storyline, despite not wanting to do a sequel originally.
I know I sound like I’m contradicting myself, but this news does bring mixed feelings to the surface. Hopefully though, Finding Dory will place itself along the same track as Toy Story, because, even though this wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment idea, I think that we all want Finding Dory to succeed.