As the 2025 season kicks off, big things are expected from The Walt Disney Company. With new experiences at the Disney Parks, several Golden Globe nominations, and several new projects coming to theaters, Disney fans have a lot to look forward to.
That being said, a familiar pattern is brewing with Disney's cinematic calendar, and it doesn't exactly give us hope. As Disney prepares for this year's releases, only one project comes with any originality, and the company's success could hinge on it.
Could Elio be the next Inside Out?
This year, Disney's releases include Pixar's Elio (2025), Zootopia 2 (2025), Freakier Friday (2025), TRON: Ares (2025), and live-action remakes of Lilo and Stitch and Snow White. Notice how only one of those titles is an original production.
In a sea of sequels and remakes, only Pixar is pushing anything original. Objectively, this might not be such a bad thing if we didn't already see a similar pattern in 2024. As a result, history might repeat itself yet again.
For those keeping score at home, Pixar's Inside Out 2 (2024) was Disney's most successful project last year, pulling Disney out of its flop era with $1,698,778,437 worldwide at the box office. Plus, it was essentially a Hail Mary from Disney, returning to a previous success after having little to no original titles.
In this writer's opinion, Elio could repeat the pattern, but in a different way. Pixar's upcoming interstellar adventure, like Inside Out 2, appears to be a family-friendly outing with a host of colorful characters embarking on a massive adventure. That's all perfectly fine, but it's also the only original idea on 2025's release calendar.
Disney has been suffering from sequel-itis for a long while, and even the last original IP from Walt Disney Animation Studios, Wish (2023), didn't entirely win all audiences over. Pixar has a solid track record, but can the studio bring back originality this year? We'll have to wait and see.
Speaking as someone who adores both Zootopia and TRON, Disney is still playing with a hefty gamble by relying so much on sequels. However, an original like Elio might be exactly what the mouse needs to get things back into gear.
Pixar's Elio releases on June 13, 2025.