The obvious answer is absolutely not. But I have to wonder…
In my humble opinion, D23 2024 in Anaheim, CA has announced to the world that there is very little creative juice left.
There seems to be a lot of projects coming out of Walt Disney Studios and sister studios that have titles with numbers after them – Inside Out 2, Moana 2, Toy Story 5, Incredibles 3, Frozen 3 (and 4!). And some without numbers but sequels nonetheless, like Mufasa.
And then there’s capitalizing with live-action repurposing. They take a successful, beloved, classic animated movie and just throw humans at it – with less than stellar reviews.
What has happened to the creativity at Walt Disney Studios? Dry spell? Writer’s block?
When it comes to sequels, they seem to ride the coattails of a popular original production by continuing storylines of existing characters rather than creating new storylines or characters. That has some merit, but I’d love to see more original stuff.
And do we really need more superheroes? We’ve come to rely on defeating bad guys by depending not on ordinary people with wits, will, wiles and determination (see: John McClane) but on a guy who was bitten by a toxic spider?
It may just be easier to take a character and give them a super-human quality either by birth, accident, or good(?) fortune that he or she can then use to defeat the depravity du jour.
I know this isn’t fair of me. Being creative is hard. The only difference between Imagineers and me is that Imagineers have talent and I do not. So it’s probably not charitable of me to say since I don’t write movie screenplays. I may (probably?) don’t know what I’m talking about, but have we run out of stories to tell? Wrongs to be righted? Underdogs winning in the end?
Walt Disney himself, when describing why he didn’t like to do sequels, said, “there are many new worlds to conquer.” Adrienne Tyler, senior staff writer at screenrant.com wrote, “Walt Disney…favored originality and creativity over expanding already explored stories.”
Innovation, originality and creativity were the hallmarks of Walt’s cinematic endeavors. Perhaps the studio executives need to be reminded that “there are many new worlds to conquer” when deciding on their next project.
Dan Chapman loves everything Mouse - with a tattoo to prove it - and longs to step back into the Disney bubble any chance he gets. He has a particular admiration of Walt Disney the man, and reads every biography written about Walt Disney that he can get his hands on.
Dan is new to navigating the post-retirement landscape and stays busy putting kayak to water, bike to trail and pen to paper.
He and his wife live "beach-adjacent" in North Carolina (close enough to enjoy the beach but far enough to avoid the property taxes).
