Inside Out 2 is now the highest grossing animated film of all time and the tenth highest grossing movie in history. The first was a successful outing for Pixar, but this level of success for the seq💧uel is quite a surprise.

After a string of box office failures or outright cinematic absenc🌠es in the form of Turning Red, Lightyear, and Elemental - although the latter was a slowburn that eventually turned a profit - Pixar has retreated to the safe pastures of sequels, prequels, and reboots.

The stu♏ff it knows most audiences will come and see regardless of demographic. Turns out a film on emotions, a selection of feelings we all experience, is a universal recipe for success. Over a billion dollars of success to be accurate, and now part of me is concerned about how this will impact the future.

I was already concerned that Inside Out 2 was going to queerbait v🅷iewers judging from the teaser trailer, but Riley’s feelings are little more than admiration for one of the cool kids at school, and the full film doesn’t do much with the more interesting 🐻fan theories people came up wit🅰h ahead of release.

It’s a broadly predictable ⛦and safe sequel, which is precisely the film Pixar wants to make and find success. Job done, looking forward to a third film that follows in the same cautious footsteps alongside countless other movies that tell effective yet predominantly underwhelming and overly common stories we’ve all seen before.

Pixar currently has one original film in production - Elio. Toy Story 5 is the only other movie confirmed to be in production right now.ও After that, I fear sequels will ꦦstart to dominate.

Earlier this year saw Pixar layoff 14 percent of its workfor𓆏ce in order to streamline its future productions and put itself in a position for survival. It also talked about the sort of stories it would prioritise in the years to come, these being universal stories that everyone relates to instead of 🐲films like Luca or Turning Red which come from specific experiences its directors, writers, and animators have had. These are the stories I want to see told at Pixar, not basic emotional adventures which are focus tested to oblivion, so you’re guaranteed to💦 have some sort of reaction regardless of who you are as a person.

It wants to condense artistic expression down to the lowest common denominator, 𝓀and it’s a heartbreaking thing to accept when you realise the most successful animation studio in the world is destined to make films about talking emotions, cars, and toys for the next decade.

Pixar wants billion dollar movies like this that it can eaไsily merchandise and distribute across the world without any cultural barriers while making as much money as possible.

At the time of writing, Inside Out 2 has g𒈔rossed $1.523 billion at the internatio𝄹nal box office. That’s more than Onward, Lightyear, and Elemental combined. Hell, it even beat out the Avengers.

You can argue that it wants to appeal to every demographic under the sun with this strategy, but it’s the same sort of rhetoric we hear when queer romances or characters of colour are censored across some🃏 territories to appease bigoted governments. It takes a small amount of critical self awareness to comprehend the game that’s being played here, and how we as audiences know and deserve better. But with Inside Out 2 making over a billion dollars already, Pixar can now point at its success and boast proudly that this is exactly what the masses want.

It wants to make money and dominate the cultural conversation, and if it can achieve such a goal without pushing the boat out or giving opportunities to new and talented creatives, then it will, and audiences are handing them the keys by showing up in droves to films that aren’t that interesting. Incredibly well-made and far from terrible, but that shouldn’t be the bar titans of industry like Pixar aspire to clear. Aim higher, be more am✨bitious, and𝔍 give a voice to people who wouldn’t otherwise get one on the greatest animated stage on the planet.