While 2024 has been great for original releases so far, the same can’t be said for big-budget blockbusters. Despite being received well critically, films like The Fall Guys and Furiosa have failed to hit it big commercially, and it’s now on Inside Out 2‘s shoulders to bring audiences back to the theatres. But theatres aren’t alone, who are counting on the sequel to hit big, as per Pixar’s Pete Docter, the iconic studio’s approach moving forward highly hinges on its performance.
And if it did end up succeeding in bringing Pixar’s train back on track, we might be in for more sequels to one of Pixar’s best films of the 2010s.
Pixar Boss Reveals They’ve Vastly Tapped the Potential of Inside Out’s World
Pixar hasn’t quite lived up to its reputation in the past few years, as the last two theatrical releases under its banner ended up becoming box-office disappointments. This has prompted them to bank on the sequel to 2015’s Inside Out, which is not only one of their top releases of the last decade, it was also the highest-grossing Pixar film that wasn’t a sequel.
Reasonably, fans were a little concerned initially if there was enough story to warrant the sequel’s existence, and reflecting on it, Pixar’s Chief Creative Officer Pete Docter clarified there was. Moreover, Docter further stressed that they have only tapped the surface when it comes to the world they’ve created inside a little girl’s mind.
He told Time:
We’ve built the entire ocean for Nemo, the entire universe for Wall-E. But it turned out the biggest set we had built [when Inside Out debuted] was inside of a little girl’s mind. We only saw like 3% of it in the first film. There was way more to play with, and we had a lot of leftover ideas
While it’s safe to say an Inside Out 3 is likely following his comments, it’ll highly depend on how the sequel performs, as per Docter, they might’ve to change their business model radically if it underperforms.
Does Inside Out 2’s Post-credit Scene Hint at a Threequel?
It seems the studio might not have to resort to drastic changes just yet, as Inside Out 2 is currently eying for the second-best opening for an animated flick at $140M-$150M. Moreover, the early reactions to the film have been pretty positive, and the sequel has also stored up not one but two post-credit scenes.
But unlike the ones in the MCU, they do not tease at future installments, as the first one sees Riley’s parents asking Riley about her time in a hockey camp, which leads to Ennui answering “It was good”. This response sends Riley’s mom’s emotions into disbelief, as anger exclaims, “She goes away for three days, and all we get is ‘good’?”
As for her dad, the new emotion Anxiety shares a response similar to Riley’s mom, to which his core emotion anger responds “Yeah, sounds right. Back to the game.”
The other post-credit scene serves as a payoff to a previous joke in the film, which sees Joy bringing Deep Dark Secret out of the vault to reveal Riley’s secret. Opposed to Joy’s guess, who thought it was about the time when Riley peed on the pool, Deep Dark Secret revealed it was about her burning a hole in the family’s rug.
Inside Out 2 is currently running in theatres.
