After the success of DreamWorks Animation’s Trolls this past November, Screen Rant has confirmed the sequel, Trolls 2, for release on April 10, 2020. The upcoming film will see the return of Justin Timberlake and Anna Kendrick performing the voices of Branch and Poppy. Trolls was recently released on Blu-Ray and DVD on February 7, 2017.

It’s hardly surprising that any film nowadays gets green-lit for a franchise, let alone a sequel. I’m sure we will get a Trolls 3 in the future as well. Now we have gotten to the point where a sequel to a film not even released yet is already planned, even though filmmakers and audiences cannot yet gauge the success. This in itself is not really new, but it is becoming a more popular trend than ever before. It’s rare now to see a film stand on its own, even if it is a film that came out a long time ago.

Audiences seemed to enjoy Trolls, at least the younger audiences, and while I myself could never get into the Troll dolls growing up, the movie itself was entertaining, dazingly colorful, funny, and touching in its own way. As far as I know, Trolls was really the first “musical,” (that is, the first DreamWorks animated film where characters break out into song) unless you count the brief pop songs that the cast of Shrek (2001) sang. Although, I believe it’s quite safe to say that it was not quite the caliber of what we have seen DreamWorks release before, and I don’t know about you, but I miss that.

Films like the Kung Fu Panda trilogy (2008-2016) and the How to Train Your Dragon films (2010, 2014) offered audiences something truly special, with not just gags, but great story and great characters as well, becoming good competition for companies like Disney and PIXAR. But with movies like The Boss Baby (2017) and Captain Underpants (2017) on the horizon, it seems like we are slowly slipping back to the less mature DreamWorks that we had somewhat moved away from up to this point. Home (2015) and Penguins of Madagascar (2014) felt a little off too.

These two upcoming films look entertaining enough, but I don’t think PIXAR has anything to worry about for the next few Academy Award seasons. No, not every animated film needs to be a masterpiece, but it is nice when it can be more than just “entertaining,” and strive for something more. It could have something to do with more corporate studio involvement with DreamWorks’s recent acquisition by Universal in April of last year. Thankfully, we have How to Train Your Dragon 3 coming out on March 1, 2019, although that is further off than it seems.

Trolls 2 will be released on April 10, 2020. Did you like Trolls? Are you excited for Trolls 2? Let us know in the comments below!