Pixar Reveals Movie Release Schedule, How It’ll Handle Sequels

Pixar recently opened up about its movie release schedule, and how it plans to release original movies along with sequels to some of its more recognizable IPs.

What is Pixar’s new movie release schedule?

Speaking to Fast Company in a recent interview, Pixar CCO and filmmaker Pete Doctor opened up about how the legendary studio plans on releasing one original film followed by one sequel. This formula, according to Docter, allows the studio to continue creating new films while also giving fans more of what they know, something he says is a difficult balance.

“We have to find out what people want before they know it,” Docter said. “Because if we just gave them more of what they know, we’d be making Toy Story 27.”

Pixar’s latest movie, Elio, released on June 20, and follows up the incredibly successful Inside Out 2. Unfortunately, despite its positive reviews, Elio seems to be underperforming at the box office. While Docter didn’t touch on that specifically, he did also mention the random nature of making money with movies, and how it’s just as expensive to make successes as it is to make movies that don’t perform well.

“It’s a rough time, and all we can do is try to make movies that I think are led by us. We have to believe in them,” Docter said. “It takes as much work and effort to make something that doesn’t make money as it does for something that does. And you can’t really plan on this stuff. Sometimes you just hit the right little combinations of things.”

Following Elio, Pixar’s next film is Hoppers, a new original film currently slated for March 6, 2026. After that, Toy Story 5 is set to drop on June 19, 2026, followed by the original film Gatto on June 18, 2027. Incredibles 3 is set to release sometime in 2028, and a sequel to the 2017 film Coco is planned for sometime in 2029.

(Source: Fast Company)