10 High-Profile 2019 Movies You Should Be Worried About
8. Toy Story 4 (June 21)
The Movie:
Almost a decade after Toy Story 3 brought the series to a seemingly-perfect conclusion, Woody and Buzz will return for the fourth installment that has had just as many behind-the-scenes issues as every other movie in the franchise.
Why You Should Be Worried:
Ignoring the Cars franchise, Pixar have actually done pretty well with sequels. Monsters University, Finding Dory and The Incredibles 2 all turned out great, but the Toy Story trilogy ended in such note-perfect fashion that continuing the series seems more like a commercial decision than a creative one.
As is par for the course with any Toy Story production, there have been plenty of bumps in the road. In July 2017, franchise steward and co-director John Lasseter stepped down from the project citing other commitments, but of course the news was soon revealed that he was leaving Disney entirely in the wake of sexual misconduct allegations. Then in January of this year, writers Rashida Jones and Will McCormack abruptly quit the project, with 75% of the duo's work allegedly being scrapped, which caused havoc with the production schedule.
Toy Story isn't a franchise that needs to be continued. Unlike The Incredibles or Nemo, which were set in worlds that clearly had more stories to tell, Woody and Buzz and the rest of the gang's adventures seemed to have reached a natural conclusion. For a studio that pride themselves on originality, in recent years Pixar seem dishearteningly willing to return to the well.