Should Pixar Make More Spinoff Movies? Lightyear Director Responds
Lightyear director Angus MacLane shares his thoughts on whether Pixar should make more spinoff movies. Acting as the origin story of the Buzz Lightyear toy first introduced in 1995's Toy Story, Lightyear chronicles the iconic Space Ranger's attempts to escape an alien planet filled with ruthless robots after becoming marooned on a mission-gone-wrong. The film marks MacLane's second spinoff movie for Pixar, with his previous directorial effort being 2016's Finding Dory, a spinoff of Finding Nemo.
Lightyear has earned more mixed reviews than is typical for a Pixar film, although many critics have praised the movie for its impressive animation and voice work, including Chris Evans' turn as the titular Space Ranger. The film opened lower at the box office than estimates had predicted, earning $51 million in its opening weekend. Lightyear failed to outpace Jurassic World Dominion, which remains a strong draw now almost 2 weeks out from its release, with the Top Gun: Maverick box office also remaining strong. In addition to Evans, Lightyear features a talented voice cast, including Keke Palmer, Taika Waititi, James Brolin, Peter Sohn, and Dale Soules.
In a new interview with Gamespot, MacLane explains why he doesn't think that more spinoff movies should be Pixar's future. The director says it's ultimately just really hard to do spinoff movies right, especially when it comes to turning a side character from one movie into the main character in another. Check out MacLane's full comment about whether Pixar should focus more on spinoffs below:
I really wouldn't recommend it. It's so, so hard. As a filmmaker you really have to think about what problems you want to solve. When we took on this project we ran into the problem of having to change a side character to a main character and that's a really hard thing. Having worked on [Finding Dory], that was just tremendously hard.
While Finding Dory is critically acclaimed and was a massive hit at the box office when it came out, going on to earn more than $1 billion, Lightyear's box office performance and critical reception has certainly been more lukewarm. There are likely a number of reasons why the film underperformed, but it's possible that Disney/Pixar overestimated the public's interest in a Buzz Lightyear origin story. There also seems to be some confusion regarding how exactly the film is related to Toy Story and why Buzz looks and sounds different in this iteration, which speaks to how hard it is to get a spinoff film right.
Moviegoers are very much living in an age of spinoffs and reboots at the moment, with movies based on existing intellectual property being more likely to turn a profit at the box office. Although Pixar continues to release original movies, such as Turning Red, Luca, and Soul, Lightyear certainly represents an attempt to capitalize on the lasting love of Toy Story. While it remains to be seen whether Pixar will make more spinoff films in the future, MacLane clearly believes that the studio would be better served by pursuing new, original stories, something that they seem to be doing with their next project, 2023's Elemental.
Source: Gamespot
Source: Screenrant
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