91 years ago, Walt Disney refused to make sequels to his films, and for a simple reason

No sequel at Disney? This was the rule at the studio for years, at Walt *’s instigation. but why

In 1933, the producer directed a short film for the whole family called The Three Little Pigs, part of the studio’s prestigious collection called Silly Symphonies. It was a success and the song “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?” It became a symbol of optimism and entered the daily life of Americans during the Great Depression.

The entire team behind the short film expects Walt Disney, the studio’s creative director, to commission a sequel to the adventures of the three little pigs. But the complete opposite happens.

Pigs can’t bring pigs back

According to a persistent legend, especially quoted in the biography Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination By Neal Gabler When the animators insisted on writing a sequel to The Adventures of the Three Little Pigs, Walt stated: “Pigs can’t be higher than pigs”Literally “pigs can’t do better than pigs”, a metaphor meaning “you can’t do better if you do the same thing over and over again”.

And if we could believe in a little quick-release formula and it didn’t work, it wasn’t the case at all! During his lifetime, no Disney feature or short would have a “No. 2,” an official sequel that retold the events of the previous film. Of course, many Mickey or Donald short films can be close to the saga of Mickey on the Beach, Mickey and the Ring, but in reality, the stories never follow each other, and the Mickey of the short film sometimes differs in character. front mic.

What if it was only in animation! But in terms of live-action feature films, no film in Walt Disney’s lifetime got a sequel, despite its success: not Mary Poppins 2, nor The Four Bassets for Denmark 2, or even Treasure Island 2.

Then when did it start?

Walt died in December 1966, followed by his brother Roy in 1971. After Disney, Don Tatum (CEO) and Card Walker (President) were in charge, and the latter revised the continuation policy that had been in place before. Studio. In terms of “living” feature films, it is Pas vu, pas pris (1972) with Kurt Russell that can be considered the first sequel. We find Dexter Riley, a character already introduced to the public in Computer Madness (1969), again played by Kurt Russell.

In animation, this rule remained in place for two decades, until Bernard and Bianca in Kangaroo Country (1991), a sequel to the 1977 Adventures of Bernard and Bianca, was finally released.

Despite an uneven period in which Disney outsourced many sequels to its classics intended for the video-only market, the no-sequels principle will remain in place.

2019, a turning point

Therefore, Bernard and Bianca will remain an isolated case in the land of kangaroos until 2019, when in the same year the studio released Ralph 2.0 after Frozen 2. From this date, Disney really abandoned the principle of Walt, Moana 2, Zootopia 2. And Frozen 3 and 4 have already been announced.

* For reasons of clarity, we refer to “Walt” when referring to Walt Disney the person and “Disney” when referring to the company as a whole.