Inside Out 2 Director Teases Plans For A Third Film, Including Idea Scrapped From The Sequel

 The emotions in the trailer for Inside Out 2.
Credit: Pixar

Inside Out became one of Pixar’s most popular films, spawning this week’s sequel. If Inside Out 2 becomes as big a hit as many are expecting, then the question of whether we’ll see an Inside Out 3 will certainly be asked. It sounds like director Kelsey Mann is interested in returning to the world of Inside Out and he has some unused ideas he’d love to bring back.

It’s already been suggested by Inside Out 2 cast member Amy Poehler that Inside Out 3 is something that could, and should happen. We could see the way emotions continue to change and evolve as Riley continues to grow. If Inside Out 3 does happen, director Kelsey Mann is up for returning as he told ComicBook.com he loves the world and would love a chance to use ideas that got cut from the new film. He explained…

I love this world. It's such a great world to play in, and ideas just kind of come from playing in this world, both for locations and characters. There's so many ideas not only from the first film, but especially in this one, where I'm like, 'That's a really fun, clever idea. I don't know how it fits into this particular story, but it should be used at some point.

Animated movies have a very different production process than live-action. The story is continually evolving even while animation is being actively done. Stories and characters can change drastically. Pixar's The Good Dinosaur went through a complete overhaul that ended up changing most of the voice actors. Toy Story 4 also went through significant changes, that also cut out one of the director's favorite side characters.

We know that many different emotions have been considered for both Inside Out movies that didn't get used. Another idea that was originally conceived for Inside Out 2 that Kelsey Mann would love to bring back in a future movie is a place in Riley’s mind called Procrastination Land. It led to a great joke, but it ultimately was decided it didn’t have a place, and so it was cut. Mann described it…

One of my favorites is a location that we came up with called Procrastination Land. This is the land I definitely have, especially as a teen. It was a land which had a big sign that said 'Procrastination Land' and then it said 'Coming Soon.' And Anger was like, 'When are they gonna start building that place?! It just keeps sitting there!' They haven't made any movement on it. It's such a funny idea. We had trouble figuring out why in this particular story. I won't tell you everything about it, there's some other stuff about it that's really funny. So I'm like, 'This has to be used somehow in the future.'

While Procrastination Land is certainly something that would be created in most of us as teens, it usually doesn’t go away as an adult, so the gag would certainly fit in a future movie.

Critics seem to love Inside Out 2, our own Inside Out 2 review called in near perfect. If audiences feel the same way, a third movie is only going to become more likely. Maybe we'll see Procrastination Land one day if the filmmakers ever get back around to it.