Definitely this. I wasn't interested in a sequel per se, but the idea (the main character getting to puberty, and all the changes that it would mean) seemed promising, and the trailer looked good.
Talking about trailers, they were smart enough and most of what you see happens very fast, allowing to enjoy the rest of the movie without having a clue of what is going to happen.
One cynical theory I saw somewhere (probably in another thread here) … Is that Disney is good at making their films seem like “must see” events, that they’re perceived as a cultural staple.
And with the partial death of cinemas, it makes sense that you’d get some films like this that just convince everyone to go see it, cuz people still want to go every now and then… and it makes sense that it’d be Disney films that do that.
Oh sure, there’d have to be a quality dimension to this too. According to the theory, not every Disney film is going to be a hit, but the hits will often be Disney films.
It’s a bit conspiratorial … in the end it’s probably about films that are enjoyable by a broad demographic, and that’s Disney.
The dynamics of somewhat random box office hits seems reasonable to me though. How many now see like 1-2 films in the cinemas a year? Getting their tickets is probably tricky and requires some sort of virality dynamic.
Yeah I've never met someone in real life who loves these movies. I'm sure they're great it's just odd. I'd expect to see more merch at stores and stuff.