Walt Disney Animation Studios has found itself with another major hit on its hands thanks to Encanto. While the movie was not the massive box office blockbuster of a Frozen movie, once the film arrived on Disney+ and more people got a chance to see it, it took the world by storm. Fans love the characters and the music as much as anything Disney has done in recent years, and so like the successful Frozen, one has to wonder if we could see a sequel. Songwriter Lin-Manuel Miranda thinks it’s quite possible.
To be clear, Lin-Manuel Miranda absolutely believes that we will get more Encanto in the future. His only question is what form it will take. Miranda recently told Collider that he thinks a movie is sequel is just one of several possible forms more stories with the Madrigal family could take. Miranda said…
I do think there's an appetite to further explore the Madrigal family, given how many characters there are, and how many gifts there are. And also where we leave the story. Now there is sort of this more fully realized version of themselves. Which way can we go? I think it's a question of when and not if, and what form that will take. Is that another movie? Is that a series? Is that a stage adaptation where we have a little more time, because stage shows are generally an hour longer than movies? And we haven't had conversations as to what form that will take, but I mean, yeah, I'd be down to continue to explore that. I love writing for Dolores and Camilo. I'd love to write more for them. I'd love to write more for Isabela. So I'm not sure what the next form of that will be, but we haven't had specific conversations about it's this or it's this.
Lin-Manuel Miranda is almost certainly right that there is an appetite for more from Encanto. There were so many characters that the story dealt with that even the movie made jokes about all the people the movie was trying to juggle. A few of the characters got short-changed when it came to screen time and development, Dolores and Camilo, two characters Miranda mentions specifically here, would certainly qualify. More Encanto would potentially give those characters and others room to do more.
There are also more than a few questions left unanswered by the film. The biggest one that many fans want to know is why Mirabel was never given magic. Considering that the last animated Disney sequel, Frozen II, dealt with explaining where a character’s magic came from, after the first movie never dealt with that question, it certainly wouldn’t be shocking to see a sequel film do a similar thing here.
But considering that Encanto wasn’t a huge theatrical success, maybe another movie isn’t the answer. Perhaps Encanto gets a Disney+ series, since the Disney+ audience is the one that made the movie so popular. Alternatively, since Lin-Manuel Miranda knows a thing or two about writing for Broadway, maybe an Encanto stage musical is the answer.
And even that’s not the end of it. Miranda has apparently also broached the idea of an Encanto theme park attraction, so that’s yet another way we could see Encanto grow as a franchise. Of course, there’s honestly no stopping Disney from doing all of these things. We could see a movie sequel, a stage show and a streaming series all get made over the next several years. If the audience is there for it Disney certainly won’t stop making it.
