Following up on the news that Pixar will be producing up to four Toy Story short films a year, Toy Story 3 director Lee Unkrich tells the MSN Movies (and me as I double checked) that a Toy Story short will appear in front of the theatrical release of Cars 2 next summer. To my mind, that’s a good news/ bad news situation. I’m completely happy seeing the Toy Story characters live on in short films through any distribution method (ie. Internet, Disney Channel, in front of theatrical releases). However, I’d be lying if I weren’t simultaneously disappointed if this Toy Story short replaces the traditionally original short film Pixar delivers with its new feature films. That’s not something I want to see stop. Toy Story is already incredibly established, it doesn’t need to be in front of Cars 2 in order to justify its existence. And how does this news mesh with the assumption that freshly opened Pixar Vancouver (which we know is definitely working on Cars and Toy Story related projects) is doing the Toy Story shorts? If that’s the case, what happens to the pattern of the theatrical shorts being chances for Pixar’s feature staff to dabble in different and/or higher positions on a small-scale project?
While I have faith that Cars 2 and Monsters, Inc 2 will have perfectly good stories and won’t reek of cash-ins like the sequels certain other animated studios dish out every couple of years, it’d be nice to at least see original characters in short form before those features. I don’t want to be too negative, nor too cynical about the ratio of sequels to new movies we’re known to be getting from Pixar in the future (3:1) but it does concern me if we have to lose an original short film to get a Toy Story one in front of Cars 2. It just seems like the Toy Story shorts can stand on their own elsewhere, or help support other movies (like say, July 2011′s Winnie the Pooh).
Cars 2, and the unnamed Toy Story short, will be in theaters on June 24th, 2011.
