These days, it seems like almost every Disney movie is a sequel, prequel, or spin-off of
some sort. Sadly, though, some projects from the House of Mouse have never had a follow-up
hit theaters — but why? This is why these Disney movies never got a sequel.
Real Steel was primed to be franchised material long before it even hit theaters. And sure
enough, in April 2011, news broke that screenwriter John Gativns had been hired to pen a script
for a Real Steel follow-up. This development was confirmed by the first movie's director
Shawn Levy, who also said he would back to direct a sequel. However, he did note at the
time that it would be a challenge to work Real Steel 2 around Hugh Jackman's busy schedule.
Since then, Jackman has been consistently busy, which has helped to keep Real Steel
2 on the sidelines. Another issue surrounding a potential sequel is the struggle to crack
a good script. Levy said in September 2014 that he and Jackman remained enthusiastic
about the Real Steel universe, but that they weren't rushing into anything, either. He
explained:
"Hugh and I would only make it if the plot feels fresh but also the character journeys
feel fresh, and we've found both but never at the same time."
Further complicating matters is the fact that the original movie was a product of distribution
agreement between Disney and DreamWorks. That deal ended in 2016, meaning that sequels to
movies like Real Steel are pretty low on the priority list for Disney these days. As far
as franchises go, this one could be a swing and miss for Levy and Jackson.
After Who Framed Roger Rabbit became one of the biggest movies of 1988, another movie
seemed pretty much inevitable — and sure enough, Disney fully intended to release a
prequel to the iconic semi-animated crime movie.
Over the next few years, the studio went through multiple iterations of what a Roger Rabbit
prequel would look like. These included The Toon Platoon, which would've seen a young
Roger Rabbit enlisted into World War II. There was also a separate Roger Rabbit origin story
entitled Who Discovered Roger Rabbit, which would have been a musical set on the streets
of Broadway.
Despite these efforts, a slew of constant problems kept the sequel from coming to fruition.
For one thing, Roger Rabbit producer Steven Spielberg had a strained relationship with
Disney, and the studio needed his approval to get any future movies off the ground. The
biggest issue, however, turned out to be the film's budget. When it was revealed the follow-up
project would cost over $100 million to make, Disney put it on the backburner.
In the years since, crew members associated with the original movie have expressed their
excitement over the sequel's script, including director Robert Zemeckis . However, they've
also mostly expressed pessimism over whether Disney will end up producing it. In 2016,
for example, Zemeckis said:
"The current corporate Disney culture has no interest in Roger, and they certainly don't
like Jessica at all."
"I'm not bad… I'm just drawn that way."
Ever since Christopher Reeve's Superman franchise first kicked off, superhero movies have almost
always gotten at least one sequel. They've only become more expansive in the current
landscape too, with modern superhero movies often spinning off into massive multimedia
franchises.
Still, they don't always warrant a follow-up. Take Disney's kid-friendly superhero movie
Sky High, for example. The premise — concerning teenage superheroes attending a high school
exclusively for superheroes — seemed ripe for further exploration in sequels. And according
to Sky High director Mike Mitchell, there were indeed plans to carry on the story in
another Sky High movie. The second movie would be called Save U, and was supposed to take
place in a college setting.
Despite the cast and crew's enthusiasm, however, the movie has yet to appear — and it's almost
entirely down to financial reasons. Disney was unimpressed with Sky High's box office,
which amounted to a solid $83.1 million worldwide but came up short compared to 2005's bigger
hits. This led Disney to abandon the franchise for the time being. And while the first movie's
writer Mark McCorkle has said a sequel could eventually appear on Disney+, it doesn't look
like it'll happen anytime soon.
Lizzie McGuire single-handedly launched Hilary Duff's career back in the early 2000s, and
the 2003 movie adaptation turned out to be a hit too, grossing $55.5 million on a $17
million budget. In the wake of The Lizzie McGuire Movie's success, it would have seemed
like a no-brainer for Duff to return for a sequel.
However, less than a month after The Lizzie McGuire Movie first hit theaters, Duff announced
that not only would this sequel not be happening, but that she was parting ways with Disney
altogether. At the time, a spokesperson for Disney confirmed that Duff's departure had
immediately killed off plans for The Lizzie McGuire Movie 2. They said:
"We gave them a very generous offer, and unfortunately, they passed. Hilary is a great girl, and we
truly wish her the best of luck."
Sam Raimi's 2013 adventure movie Oz the Great and Powerful was a spiritual prequel to The
Wizard of Oz, set in the sprawling world that L. Frank Baum penned in his original novels.
"Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."
And it looked like Baum's mythos was set to expand even further when a sequel to Raimi's
movie was announced a few days before the original hit theaters.
Unfortunately, the movie's production faced a daunting challenge right from the get-go,
after Raimi himself announced his total disinterest in helming a follow-up movie. Raimi explained
in an interview:
"I was attracted to [Oz the Great and Powerful's] story, but I don't think the second one would
have the thing I would need to get me interested."
It didn't help that Oz the Great and Powerful wasn't a huge smash at the overseas box office,
either, especially compared to Disney's other live-action fantasy movies. On top of all
that, Oz star James Franco has received multiple accusations of sexual misconduct in the years
since Oz's release. The chances of an Oz sequel were dicey enough to begin with, but Franco's
numerous controversies make the prospects of a follow-up even more unlikely.
Edgar Rice Burroughs' original John Carter novels spanned numerous installments. Officially,
there are 11 books headlined by the character — so it's natural that any movie adaptation
of Burrough's universe would lead to at least a sequel or two. That's exactly what John
Carter director Andrew Stanton had planned prior to the release of his 2012 epic, too.
In fact, Stanton had ambitions for an entire trilogy of John Carter movies. These plans
had gone far enough that, the week of the original John Carter's release, producer Jim
Morris revealed that Stanton and screenwriter Michael Chabon were penning a screenplay for
a follow-up.
But the first movie's hugely underwhelming box office performance — to a tune of a
$200 million loss for Disney — guaranteed that moviegoers wouldn't be returning to the
world of Barsoom anytime soon. Two years later, Stanton took to Twitter to give John Carter
fans a glimpse at what could have been, by revealing the titles and logos for the unmade
John Carter sequels: Gods of Mars and Warlord of Mars. Stanton wrote:
"Could have been cool. Had big plans..."
Planes: Fire and Rescue, the follow-up to 2013's Cars spin-off Planes, debuted in theaters
in the summer of 2014. Despite being one of only a handful of animated kids movies dropping
that season, it turned out to be a huge box office disappointment and made far less than
the original Planes movie. Nevertheless, Disney wasn't planning to let this franchise go without
a fight.
In August 2017, a new entry in the Planes franchise was announced, which was set to
take the whole saga into outer space. Aside from that, however, the project's details
were kept tightly under wraps. Disney never revealed the movie's title, nor did they give
a clue as to whether any original cast members would be returning. All fans knew was that
this cosmic threequel would hit theaters on April 12th, 2019.
But the untitled Planes movie hit some turbulence it just couldn't shake in the summer of 2018,
when its animation studio, DisneyToon Studios, was shut down. With the closure of DisneyToon,
all projects at the studio were canceled, and any hope of rescue was likely dashed when
Cars 3 underperformed at the box office the preceding summer. For now, at least, it looks
like Planes 3 will remain firmly grounded.
By the early 2000s, Disney had created an assembly line of direct-to-video sequels for
its animated movies. Starting with 1994's The Return of Jafar, the studio released animated
sequels to everything from Lady & the Tramp to The Lion King.
So it should come as no surprise to find that plans were put into place to produce a sequel
to Treasure Planet. Director Jun Falkenstein was hired to direct the project, which would
have followed Jim Hawkins and his exploits at the Royal Interstellar Academy. Supporting
characters from the first movie would have returned, and the project even got far enough
along to cast Willem Dafoe as the film's villain, a nefarious mechanical pirate named Ironbeard.
Unfortunately, the Monday after the first Treasure Planet opened in theaters, Falkenstein
was told that the movie's disastrous opening weekend had spurred Disney into sinking the
sequel. She later said:
"This was a huge bummer because we thought the project was rocketing along really smoothly.
All the crew were really enthusiastic about the film."
In the end, though, Falkenstein's project was destined to end up as little more than
buried treasure.
Over the last decade, Walt Disney Animation Studios has become much more comfortable with
the idea of producing sequels. Back in the day, only a handful of Disney Animation movies
— such as The Rescuers or Fantasia — landed follow-up projects. In recent years, however,
the studio has released new instalments of some of its biggest hits, including Frozen
and Wreck-It Ralph.
One modern Disney Animation hit that didn't score a sequel, though, was Tangled. This
is in spite of the film proving to be a resounding financial success and taking in a massive
$585 million worldwide box office haul. So where's the sequel?
According to producer Roy Conli , the thought of doing another Tangled movie has actually
crossed a few minds. In fact, the original film's creators even went so far as to discuss
what kind of story could be explored in a prospective part two. While brainstorming
ideas for a follow-up, however, they came to one undeniable conclusion.
"Did I ever tell you I have a thing for brunettes?"
As Conli explained to Den of Geek:
"Her hair was gone! There you go!"
Without Rapunzel's magical hair, writing a Tangled 2 seemed pretty much pointless. Still,
this doesn't mean more stories can't be told in Tangled's world. Short-form sequels have
emerged in the last decade, such as Tangled Ever After and the animated TV show Tangled:
The Series. But a feature-length Tangled sequel just isn't something Walt Disney Animation
Studios seem able to straighten out.
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