Will audiences play with 'Toy Story 4'?
The third installment of the animated Toy Story franchise, released in 2010, seemed to provide such a pitch-perfect ending to the tale, with Woody and pals beginning a new life with Bonnie as Andy heads to college.
Yet Disney and Pixar just announced plans for a fourth go-round with the cast, scheduled for 2017. It's to be directed by Pixar chief John Lasseter, who helmed the first two movies. That has prompted die-hard fans to ask: Is this just another case of Hollywood sequel-itis? Hasn't Lasseter seen Rocky IV or Live Free and Die Hard?
Lasseter has said in a studio release that he and Pixar "love these characters so much'' and "we don't want to do anything with them unless it lives up to or surpasses what's gone before."
Lasseter's instincts are usually good (despite Cars and its sequel), and Pixar has wisely avoided follow-ups to Wall-E, Ratatouille and Up. But Hollywood is littered with stories that ended perfectly after two or three installments and then pushed on with diminished success, including Jaws, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, The Godfather and Superman.
An even longer list can be made of the films that should have stopped after one good outing: Transformers, Pirates of the Caribbean, Speed, The Karate Kid, Hangover, Home Alone, City Slickers, Free Willy and 101 Dalmatians among them.
For every Harry Potter series that did it right, there are many more that did it wrong.
"You have to be very careful when you do this," said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at box-office tracking firm Rentrak. A sequel "becomes the latest iteration of the franchise, and that will always be part of the legacy."
The Toy Story legacy is not only beloved, but highly lucrative: The three movies have a worldwide box-office total nearing $2 billion.
"This is one of the most successful franchises, not only in animation history, but in the history of American film," said Charles Solomon, animation historian and critic, and author of The Toy Story Films: An Animated Journey. "This is obviously an extremely lucrative franchise that Disney and Pixar want to continue. But it's also very clear that the artists at Pixar love these characters and don't want to give them up."
Toy Story 3 came out more than a decade after 1999's Toy Story 2, and audiences worried about its quality as well, said Solomon.
"It worked because they found a story that proved to be so compelling that it reduced a large percentage of the audience to tears," he said. "That did seem to wrap up so beautifully, but the question is: Have they come up with another story that's going to surprise?''
And is Pixar capable of pulling it off?
"Like the Marvel brand, Pixar really understands the characters and the audience," said Dergarabedian. "They know there's a legacy to live up to and that multitudes of fans who loved these characters will be watching very closely. There's a huge responsibility."
Lasseter has said he never planned on doing a fourth film until he saw the new concept, co-written by Peter Doctor (writer/director of Up and Monsters, Inc.), Andrew Stanton (writer/director of Finding Nemo) and Lee Unkrich (co-writer/director of Toy Story 3).
"It will depend on what they have found for the characters to do," Solomon said."Are we going to be getting the Toy Story equivalent of Jar Jar Binks, or are we going to be getting The Empires Strikes Back?"