Walt Disney Company announces Toy Story 5, Frozen 3 and Zootropolis 2

The Walt Disney Company has announced sequels for some of its most successful franchises – including Toy Story, Frozen and Zootopia.

Chief executive Bob Iger told investors that the sequels are currently in development, according to weekly entertainment publication Variety.

The announcement comes as Disney, which owns Star Wars, Marvel and Pixar, is cutting some 7,000 employees as part of a “strategic transformation”.

During Disney’s first-quarter earnings call, Mr Iger spoke about plans to monetise some of the company’s biggest franchises.

“I’m so pleased to announce that we have sequels in the works from our animation studios to some of our most popular franchises: Toy Story, Frozen and Zootopia,” he said.

“We’ll have more to share about this production soon, but this is a great example of how we’re leaning into our unrivalled brands and franchises.”

The California company said it wants to make sure executives in charge of content creation have a prominent say in what films, TV shows or other content to produce, as well as the marketing and distribution of those products.

Toy Story is a long-time film franchise for Disney.

The original film, which was the first computer-animated feature film and the debut feature release from Pixar Animation Studios, came out in 1995.

It received a Special Achievement Academy Award in 1996 as there was no best animated feature film category at the time.

The most recent sequel, Toy Story 4, was released in 2019 and won two animated film Oscars in 2020 – the first franchise to do so.

Predecessor Toy Story 3 won the best animated feature Academy Award in 2011. A prequel, Lightyear, was in cinemas last year.

The original Frozen film came out in 2013 and won the Academy Award for best animated feature film in 2014.

The sequel, Frozen II, was in cinemas in 2019.

Disney made about 13bn US dollars (£10.7bn) in worldwide box office in 2019, helped by a strong slate of films which included Toy Story 4, Frozen II, Avengers: Endgame and others.

Unlike Toy Story and Frozen, Zootropolis – known as Zootopia outside the UK – has yet to have a sequel.

The original film came out in 2016 and won an Academy Award for best animated film in 2017.