Inside Out 2 is Pixar’s biggest movie release of 2024 — but there’s more in store, with a spinoff TV series in the works for Disney Plus.
It’s a weird time for Pixar right now. Audiences’ habits have changed; Soul, Luca, and Turning Red came to streaming with little fanfare, Lightyear couldn’t replicate Toy Story’s success at the box office, and Elemental eventually became a hit — but its momentum was unusually slow for the animation titan.
If this summer goes to plan, that could all be about to change. Inside Out 2, the long-awaited follow-up to 2015’s Oscar-winner, is set to be the first film to cross the $100 million barrier in its opening weekend.
Whether or not it’ll match the original movie’s acclaim remains to be seen, but Pixar is betting on its success — and that’s why it’s been developing a spinoff TV show alongside the sequel.
According to Bloomberg, it’s titled Dream Productions and “set in the Inside Out universe of Riley’s dreams.” The name comes from the ‘studio’ that creates Riley’s dreams, but it’s unclear if the series will continue to follow Riley or if it’ll include other characters.
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This comes as Pixar reaffirms its focus on success in theaters, rather than streaming, after the downturn of the past four years. “I hope that we will not release another feature film on Disney+,” president Jim Morris said.
“If we do more stuff for Disney+, it should be a series, and then that makes a clean demarcation between what we do for theaters and what we do for streaming.”
By all accounts (of which there aren’t many yet), Inside Out 2 is poised to be a big win for the studio: after early footage was showed to select executives at CinemaCon, some said “the story and visuals suggested it could be the best Pixar film in a decade.”
Inside Out 2 hits cinemas on June 14, 2024. You can also find other new movies coming to cinemas next month, as well as new movies on streaming.