09 February 2023

Disney working on Toy Story, Frozen and Zootropolis sequels

09 February 2023

Disney is working on sequels for Toy Story, Frozen and Zootropolis – three huge hits as the entertainment powerhouse attempts to find its footing under newly returned chief executive Bob Iger.

The company is undergoing a “strategic transformation”, Mr Iger said on Wednesday, including 7,000 redundancies and a renewed focus on core brands and franchises.

Mr Iger, who returned as CEO in November after a challenging two-year tenure by his handpicked successor Bob Chapek, announced plans for the new films during Disney’s first-quarter earnings call on Wednesday.

Disney owns Star Wars, Marvel and Pixar.

Its latest Marvel movie, Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania, is out on February 17.

The California company said it wants to make sure executives in charge of content creation have a prominent say in what films, TV shows or other content to produce, as well as the marketing and distribution of those products.

Toy Story is a long-time film franchise for Disney.

The original film, which was the first computer-animated feature film and the debut feature release from Pixar Animation Studios, came out in 1995.

It received a Special Achievement Academy Award in 1996 as there was no best animated feature film category at the time.

The most recent sequel, Toy Story 4, was released in 2019 and won two animated film Oscars in 2020 – the first franchise to do so.

Predecessor Toy Story 3 won the best animated feature Academy Award in 2011.

A prequel, Lightyear, was in cinemas last year.

The original Frozen film came out in 2013 and won the Academy Award for best animated feature film in 2014.

The sequel, Frozen II, was in cinemas in 2019.

Disney made about 13 billion US dollars (£10.7 billion) in worldwide box office in 2019, helped by a strong slate of films which included Toy Story 4, Frozen II, Avengers: Endgame and others.

Unlike Toy Story and Frozen, Zootropolis – known as Zootopia outside the UK – has yet to have a sequel.

The original film came out in 2016 and won an Academy Award for best animated film in 2017.

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