Andrew Stanton on the possibilities of a third Finding Nemo film

Last Updated on July 31, 2021

Pixar has, for the most part, been able to keep the quality of their sequels up to a very high standard. FINDING DORY, the recently released sequel to FINDING NEMO, has become yet another winner for the animation studio which would typically have people immediately thinking about a sequel, but not Pixar. Even when FINDING NEMO proved to be an enourmous success, director Andrew Stanton told Entertainment Weekly that “there was zero discussion of a sequel.” It wasn't until years later that Stanton began to ponder the idea of a sequel to the film, but he didn't let too many people in on it at first.

I knew nobody was going to argue with making a sequel, and I was actually more of the opposite – I was very paranoid, like, ‘We’re not going to say the words ‘Finding anything’ out loud to anybody, including in-house/ I just knew the minute those words came out of my mouth, I’d never be able… the horse would be out of the barn, and we’d never be able to put it back in.

With FINDING DORY's success, people are once again talking sequel, but as before, Stanton isn't looking to jump into anything, although he has learned never to say never.

I really do feel like this was the missing piece, emotionally, for the first movie. Now, I’ve stopped saying never for anything because there are a lot of new characters that get introduced and we’ve broadened the universe for this movie. And again, I’m very used to seeing that world continue to open up from the Toy Story movies… so I’ve learned to just say, to my knowledge, I think everything that was born of the first movie is wrapped up. But we’ll see.

Stanton is also aware that a truly successful sequel is a very rare thing.

With any of the other sequels, we strive to try and make it seem like it was inevitable, like it was meant to be, that all these extended stories and journeys with these characters were part of the whole canon. And that’s really hard, but it’s so satisfying for me when I’m experiencing that, whether it’s a great second season of a TV show or another book in a series. It’s a small club when it’s done successfully. Regardless of how much people may vocalize that they don’t enjoy or wish that there weren’t extensions, sometimes it’s really nice to go back and spend more time with these characters if they evolve, if they grow, if they expand. So that, I’m very happy with. I feel like it was just as hard, if not harder, on [Finding Dory] to get it to feel inevitable and preordained, and that it was always of the larger piece.

FINDING DORY is now playing in theaters. Make sure to check out a review from our own Eric Walkuski!