Animated franchises that don’t go straight to video are a relatively new phenomenon. The tradition had been they’d go right to video where junior would pop in The Land Before Time XI and set to turning his parents’ brains into tapioca. Animation has upped its game, though, and with the release of the highly anticipated How to Train Your Dragon 2 this weekend, I thought I’d give my Top 5 Animated Sequels.
Essentially, everyone on this list is still chasing the top two spots. Toy Stories 2 and 3 are a virtual tie for #1 and the gulf between them and #3 (as much as I love me some minions) is grand canyon-esque. Hopefully HTTYD2 will perform as well as the reviews are indicating and take its place on this list.
1. Toy Story 3
2. Toy Story 2
3. Despicable Me 2
4. Kung Fu Panda 2
5. Shrek 2
A franchise-driven marketplace = better sequels. But the Toy Story franchise is the most consistently excellent in film history, and might actually remain so, because each installment doesn’t just get better than the (excellent) film that came before, it gets exponentially better.
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