In light of Pixar’s losing streak at the box office, Disney CEO Bob Iger recently addressed the studio’s overall difficult situation, with one comment appearing to hint specifically at Lightyear‘s failure. Despite mixed critical reception, the Toy Story spin-off underperformed in theaters, becoming one of the few major flops in Pixar history. Far from being an isolated incident, Lightyear is representative of the animation studio’s current downward trend, which has already been reinforced by the very modest profit grossed by its latest release, Elemental.
Centered around the movie starring the character inspired Toy Story‘s Buzz Lightyear (Chris Evans), Lightyear struggled to find its footing among audiences and is by far the weakest link in an otherwise wildly successful franchise. The state of affairs for Pixar’s latest underwhelming projects has been recently discussed by Disney CEO Bob Iger, who provided his take on the legendary company’s downfall. Among his comments on the root causes of Pixar’s issues, one is especially significant for Lightyear‘s future (and beyond).
Bob Iger might have implicitly pointed to poor creative decisions as the ultimate reason for Lightyear‘s fiasco. In an interview with The Wrap, the Disney CEO largely attributed Pixar’s latest commercial fails to the studio’s drive to increase content output for Disney+ and the direct-to-streaming model but openly admitted that there were some “creative misses” as well. Being related to the very quality of the ideas behind the films, this comment stands out among the others and is very likely aimed at Lightyear.
The choice of a Buzz-centered prequel was met with a fair share of skepticism from the start, with the original Toy Story director being critical of Lightyear because of how the character was handled. Moreover, Iger pretty much cannot be referring to other recent releases, as Turning Red, Soul, and Luca all received consistently good reviews despite still being a far cry from Pixar’s golden age. This leaves out Onward and Lightyear, but the latter had a generally worse reception and was the most blatant fail between the two.
Disney Knows Lightyear Didn’t Work
Whether because of strategy or creativity issues, Disney is aware that Lightyear was a failed attempt. As much as the box office bomb was essentially unanticipated, the general feeling is that the company knows that the Space Ranger origin story did not meaningfully add to the Toy Story franchise and its premise was simply not strong enough to hold up to the studio’s standards. In this sense, Pixar executive Pete Doctor’s statements about Lightyear‘s flop confirm this perception.
Disney’s attempt to batten down the hatches was not long in coming. Despite Toy Story 4 delivering a satisfying ending to Woody and Buzz’s story, Toy Story 5 has already been announced and is in the works. The intention to continue a successful franchise is not surprising in and of itself, but the timing and the last installment’s ending make it at least a bit suspicious. Other than being an awkward attempt at a redemption arc, this decision is also a big testament to Disney’s awareness of the Lightyear debacle.
Lightyear 2 Isn’t The Only Casualty Of Pixar’s Creative Failure
At this point, it’s clear that Lightyear is not going to get a sequel, which is probably not such an unexpected choice given the movie’s failure. However, Pixar’s failure at delivering a successful Buzz origin story might have much larger implications for Disney’s animation studio as a whole. Lightyear‘s poor critical reception and box office bomb, in fact, set a negative precedent for prequels, spin-offs, and pretty much any story that takes familiar characters out of their usual worlds. While Pixar’s strength has always been finding unique stories around which beloved movies are built, the studio has seemed to have lost its touch in that area in the past few years.
In this respect, Lightyear ruled out the chances of many other projects ever being brought to fruition, with Disney showing that it wants to be more selective about the projects it greenlights moving forward. With the latest underwhelming results, Pixar and Disney are not going to want to take other big risks by pursuing similar creative directions. While it is impossible to know whether the future holds greener pastures for the company, the idea that Disney is going to want to play it safe for a while, which is confirmed by Toy Story 5, does not sound like a great prospect.
