During the financial report, Disney CEO Bob Iger announced that new parts of “Toy Story”, “Frozen” and “Zootopia” are in development. He added that details about the sequels would be forthcoming and thanked investors for their trust in Disney’s “unsurpassed brands.”
Such an announcement is not surprising, since all the latest releases of the mentioned films collected a decent box office at the global box office. “Frozen” is one of Disney Animation’s most successful projects, the second part of which earned $1.4 billion at the global box office and was nominated for an Oscar 2022 for the best original song “Into the Unknown”. The original 2013 film won two Oscars for Best Animated Feature Film and Best Original Song for “Let It Go.”
Zootopia grossed $1.02 billion, won the top animated film at the 2017 Oscars and launched a Disney+ series that had been rumored for years.
1995’s Toy Story was the first fully computer-animated feature film and one of the most beloved cartoons for many. The success of the original spawned three sequels: Toy Story 2 in 1999, Toy Story 3 in 2010, and Toy Story 4 in 2019. Across all four main films, the franchise has earned $3.03 billion at the global box office – the fourth installment of the story brought in $1.07 billion, received a 2020 Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song “I Can’t Let You Throw Yourself Away” by Randy Newman and won the statuette as the best full-length animated film. However, last year’s spinoff Lighter was less successful with a modest $226 million box office and mixed reviews.
This is perhaps the most positive news against Disney’s dismal earnings report. Bob Iger, who recently returned as CEO, announced that the company would cut 7,000 jobs in an effort to cut $5.5 billion in costs, and shared some sweet numbers for the streaming division: Disney Plus added just 200,000 subscribers in the US and Canada (a total of 6 million), while its international offering (excluding HotStar) gained 1.2 million users; Hulu and ESPN Plus posted similarly slow growth, each adding 800,000 (up 48 million) and 600,000 (up 24.9 million) subscribers, respectively.
Source: IGN, Collider
