While Disney honcho Alan Horn‘s comments about “Star Wars 7” dominated the news yesterday, he also touched upon a couple of other big properties in the Mouse House that fans (and investors) are keeping an eye on.
You might think that with the $1.1 billion success of “Frozen,” Disney would be hot to trot on a sequel, but surprisingly, that’s not the case. According to THR, “Disney’s sole focus at the moment was getting the ‘Frozen’ musical ready for Broadway and that a sequel hadn’t even been discussed.” That initially might seem counterintuitive, but from the standpoint of expanding the brand, it makes perfect sense. And since animated films take years to make anyway, no sense rushing something out until they have the approach they want.
And that seems to be the attitude Disney is taking with “Pirates Of The Caribbean 5,” which at one point had a release date, but has since been delayed. And once again, it’s all about making sure everything is in the best shape possible before spending hundreds of millions of dollars. “We haven’t seen a screenplay yet that I’ve been able to sign off on… There’s a lot of variables that affect the final outcome once it leaves the studio lot, so we are very careful,” Horn offered about the further adventures of Jack Sparrow.
Meanwhile, other studios are beefing up their franchise offerings, starting with Universal. They’re getting ready to bring “Jurassic World” to cinemas next year, and duh, they might want to make more of them, and sequels are already being talked about. “We definitely talked about [sequels] a lot,” the director/co-writer Colin Trevorrow told Empire. “We wanted to create something that would be a little bit less arbitrary and episodic, and something that could potentially arc into a series that would feel like a complete story.”
And that’s not all, Trevorrow reveals that two key characters would likely return (unless one of them gets eaten in the first film). “He’s essentially Chris Pratt’s best friend,” he said about Omar Sy‘s character. “They work together and have some pretty cool action scenes together. I wanted to create a relationship there that could be memorable and potentially carry on to future films.” But until those sequels, the first film has to get made, and today EW dropped the first set pics which you can see below.
So, there you go. And it would seem Disney, of all studios, is taking the most patient approach when it comes sequels. Who knew?
Yea thats exactly it- Disney's got to wait until they hit the right idea that works. Even a release in 2020 would be perfect if it means the movie would be as good as the first.
Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Men Tell No Tales already has a script. Script writer Jeff Nathanson is just not finished with writing it yet.
RE Frozen 2 – that would be the first (I think) theatrical sequel Disney Animation have ever done. I though that had an actual policy against it, in order to not dilute the standing of the originals.
Pirates 5 would be awesome!! I've been waiting for years! I love Jack Sparrow's adventures! Please! Oh and stop changing the leads. Stay with Penelope Cruz, or at least Orlando Bloom should come back.
Pirates 5 please!! Bring Orlando bloom back! Or at least others like Ian Mcshane, Jack Davenport, or Penelope Cruz! Don't keep changing the leads!! Please!
Please do Pirates 5!! Frozen just came out, so why do a Frozen 2? Sure it was kinda a big hit but not as much as Pirates have had for years! Pirates fans have been waiting forever!