10 Dumb Mistakes That Ruined Once Great Franchises

OK, Pixar's not a narrative series, but it's name is certainly a franchise brand, one that habitually (bar The Good Dinosaur) gets audience members of all ages out to see the latest transcendent life-musings-posing-as-a-bright-kids-adventure.

And in that regard, the brand's had a bit of a knock in recent years. I'd say the turn started with Toy Story 3, but I'm in the minority there. With Cars 2, however, everyone's in agreement it's a major, charmless misfire. This was followed up by the unremarkable Brave, Monsters University (which is a great frat prequel, but not overly loved) and then a year without a film due to production issues on The Good Dino. Yes, Inside Out was a top tier classic, but things are back on the turn care of an endless raft of sequels.

After Finding Dory (serviceable if not all that novel), the next three years have a follow-up each - Cars 3, The Incredibles 2 and Toy Story 4 - and while I'll be gobsmacked if people aren't snaking round the block and making arsey claims about "waiting X years" for these films, it's a rather unoriginal direction that reeks of Disney arm-forcing (Andrew Stanton even stated that was the reason for Dory).

Here's hoping the reports they're done with sequels proves to be true and in 2020 we're not all sitting down for Up 2: Down.