The success of the first Inside Out movie in 2015 was so great that it must have taken innumerable acts of will and good faith to stop the powers that be immediately churning out another and another and squeezing the franchise dry as fast as possible. Instead, a sequel to the coming-of-age story of 11-year-old Riley and her increasingly complicated inner life (Joy, Anger, Fear, Disgust and Sadness, voiced by the actors Amy Poehler, Lewis Black, Bill Hader, Mindy Kaling and Phyllis Smith respectively) wasn’t produced until this year. Inside Out 2 introduced an adolescent Riley struggling with the advent of Anxiety (Maya Hawke), Envy (Ayo Edebiri), Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser) and a small but scene-stealing dose of Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos). It was just as charming, inventive, funny and loving as the first and outdid it at the box office.
All of which means you can approach the four-part spin-off Dream Productions, set between the two films and based in the studio that puts together Riley’s dreams, in one of two ways: with Poehleresque joy (more of the good stuff so quickly! Yay!) or Hawkeish anxiety (oh no! Has the dam burst? Has the lure of the dollar become too much and we are about to be flooded with all the crap they were dying to cash in with in the decade between movies?).
