Disney has set forthcoming sequels for hit animated movies “Frozen,” “Toy Story” and “Zootopia,” with CEO Bob Iger making the announcement during the company’s first-quarter earnings call. Details on the projects are yet to come.
The subsequent films will mark the third installment in the “Frozen” universe, a fifth edition in the “Toy Story” franchise and the second “Zootopia” movie. Given the surprise announcement, plot details, as well as the creatives and stars attached, are to be announced at a later date.
The news comes amid a round of huge layoffs at the embattled company, which will let go of 7,000 employees, or roughly 3% of its workforce, as the media behemoth looks to cut $5.5 billion in costs and restore a dividend it eliminated during the pandemic. Even with $3 billion in content cost cuts, Disney said it would keep its annual spending on content at $30 billion, as it had previously forecasted.
Box office results of “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” and “Avatar: The Way of Water” helped catapult Disney to beat Wall Street expectations, as did the reinstatement of veteran CEO Iger. Disney posted an 8% jump in revenue to $23.5 billion in the quarter compared to $21.8 billion from the same period last year, slightly outperforming analysts’ projections.
Not only do sequels work at theaters, but they also tend to break records during their streaming runs, as exemplified by the second “Black Panther” movie, which became the most-streamed Marvel movie on Disney+ based on hours viewed in its first five days. “Our brands and franchises work extremely well in streaming,” Iger said Wednesday on a call with analysts to discuss the quarterly results.
“Frozen 2” earned $1.45 billion at the box office, while Pixar’s “Toy Story 4” and “Zootopia” both broke the billion-dollar mark. The former film is Oscar-nominated, while the latter two have won Academy Awards. All films were successful both critically and with audiences.
