Now that Pixar’s latest, Hoppers, is out there, the studio can talk freely about what comes next. Everyone knows about Toy Story 5, but what about their plans for the years to come?
A new report in The Wall Street Journal, which is heavily paywalled so don’t even bother looking for it, discusses Pixar’s full production slate and reveals several projects no one knew about before. What they’re cooking right now are a mix of original films and sequels, but admittedly, the load is heavy on the sequel side.
There are two original movies mentioned and three follow-ups. First up is the already announced Gatto, directed by Enrico Casarosa (Luca) and slated for 2027. It will be followed at some point by One Ghost Market, Domee Shi’s next film after Turning Red, and reportedly “an anime-influenced feature inspired by Asian myths about supernatural bazaars where the living and the dead interact.” One Ghost Market will also be a musical, something Pixar’s never tried before.
We now have targeted years for two of the sequels. Incredibles 3, directed by Peter Sohn, is aiming for 2028. Coco 2, directed by Lee Unkrich and Adrian Molina, will follow in 2029. But the WSJ also casually mentioned something new: a Monsters Inc 3, currently with no revealed writer or director or a release window.
The thing about Monsters Inc is that you can tell they thought they were never making a second one. The film ends by blowing up its own premise: the monsters discover laughter generates far more Monstropolis energy than scares. Because of this, the sequel had to be a prequel: Monsters University, released in 2013. It revealed how Mike and Sulley got together and what Mike’s past with Randolph was, but eventually, the story had to move forward when a Disney+ TV show went into production.
For Monsters At Work, they had to shift the focus: the main POV was now that of a top scarer who dreamed of working for the company as it was, but was blindsided when they changed priorities just as he got there. Mike and Sulley were still part of the show — in fact they now ran the company — but their story was pretty much dunzo and the real meat and potatoes were the new characters.
So it all begs the question, how do you make a Monsters Inc 3? The franchise itself has acknowledged, in its own way, that it can’t move forward the way that it currently is. Do they come up with another main character, or do they blow up the premise yet again? (Maybe eating children is even more efficient than making them laugh!) We don’t know what to expect here. I suppose we’ll eventually find out.
