The Difficult Years

2020-present

2020. Not a year that the majority of us will remember with fondness. And that goes for the big film studios as well, because with cinemas shut down, they only had streaming services to rely on to get their new movies out to audiences. It was a real struggle.

Unfortunately, thanks to streaming services releasing new movies in a timely fashion, many movie-watchers now don’t feel the need to go all their way to their local movie theatre to see a new film. They can just wait a couple of months and get it on whatever streaming service they are currently subscribed to – with many people not just subscribed to the one service, but multiple. What’s the point in paying to see a movie twice, especially when seeing a film in the comfort of your home is preferable to being surrounded by strangers who eat loudly, talk, and check their phones? Not to mention being able to pause a movie whenever you want.

But I’m getting side-tracked. The point here is that Pixar’s movies since 2020 have not been amazing. Some have felt like a really low point for the company – I’m looking at you, Lightyear (2022) – and others perhaps didn’t feel like such an occasion because they were released directly to Disney+, missing out on many months of normal promotional activities.

With time, I’m sure Pixar will turn it around and they’ll come back out on top once more.