A penny for Quentin Tarantino’s thoughts now that Toy Story 5 will soon be released in theaters. Indeed, we’d love to know his thoughts after it was rumored that Toy Story 6 and 7 are being probed for the future. The Pulp Fiction director famously cited Toy Story 3 as his second favorite movie of the 21st century. Perhaps even more famously, he refused to watch Toy Story 4, suggesting that the perfect ending to the trilogy was enough.
Tarantino is, of course, well known to not be a fan of sequels, refusing to visit them in his own work (Kill Bill does not count), but he has probably got the best strategy for dealing with unwanted sequels, like Toy Story 4, he just doesn’t watch them.
It is perhaps the best defense of those who are not too bothered about sequels and reboots, not only not watching them, if you don’t want to, but getting into the frame of mind that one film does not detract from the other. For example, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny doesn’t taint the superlative Raiders of the Lost Ark, even if the anger caused by these unnecessary additions to the canon is everywhere.
There is, of course, nothing inherently wrong with sequels. Sports fans will happily watch the Super Bowl every year, they’ll bet on the NBA MVP with gusto, and they’ll get excited when the Red Sox play the Yankees around a dozen times a season, so why get upset when a movie comes out in theaters?
We shouldn’t be affronted by sequels and reboots
Much of it comes back to a sense of ownership. The new Harry Potter series, while a reboot, is getting hammered by (some) fans of the original movies, as if there were an affront to them. But why take the view that the existence of the new series detracts from the original one? It’s another matter if you sit down to watch the new series, and it ends up being bad, which could well be the case, but why get mad at something that you have no intention of watching?
There is perhaps a sense, too, that the existence of sequels occupies a space that would otherwise be left for original movies. There is some weight to that argument because you do hear movie insiders, particularly actors, talk about how studios are reluctant to take chances on original ideas. However, there is a counterpoint: more movies are being made today (or at least in recent years, as there is still a hangover from Covid-19) than ever before. Roughly speaking, about three times (670) more major motion pictures were made in 2025 compared to 1990 (236).
The problem might come from the fact that the majority of sequels hog the limelight and the box-office. 12 of the 13 highest-grossing movies of the 2020s are sequels. The only exception on that list was Barbie. So, if you come at if from that angle, then you can say, yes, we do have a problem. But among the releases coming up this summer, another Scary Movie, another Jackass, and Tarantino’s favorite, another Toy Story, there are loads of original movies, from Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey to The End of Oak Street to Spielberg’s Disclosure Day. There’s enough to get excited about on the big screen, so don’t worry about the sequels and remakes.
