Back in 2003, Pixar's Finding Nemo enjoyed tremendous critical and popular success. Not only did it become the top grossing animated film of all time, earning more than $936 million at the box office worldwide, it also won an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and was nominated for three other Oscars.

Released 13 years after the original, it's safe to say that expectations for the sequel Finding Dory were relatively modest. Though a few more critical dissenters have emerged, the movie has proven to be incredibly popular among audiences, already taking in more than $548 million at the box office worldwide just since its release on June 17.

The reservations we mentioned had to do with the movie's plot, which sounded like a recycled thread in which the forgetful supporting fish Dory sets off on a mission to find herself. Instead, it seems that audiences are responding to the film's underlying message of accepting individuals for who and what they are, all while cloaked in a very colorful and amusing adventure.

Yet the success of Finding Dory has also made some wonder if Pixar has become too dependent on sequels, especially after its purchase by Disney in 2006. After a string of 7 very successful original movies stretching throughout the first 10 years of this century, Pixar's next 7 movies included 4 sequels.

Of the original productions, last year's The Good Dinosaur became the company's lowest grossing movie to date. Of the company's next four planned releases -- Cars 3, Coco, Toy Story 4 and The Incredibles 2 -- three are sequels. Will Pixar remain focused on sequels?

In brief: no, according to Pixar president Jim Morris in a conversation with Entertainment Weekly. Morris says: "Our business model is a filmmaker model, and we don’t make a sequel unless the director of the original film has an idea that they like and are willing to go forward on.”

After The Incredibles 2, due in theaters in 2019, Morris says that the following four Pixar releases will all be original productions and that no other sequels are currently planned. He also says that the recent and upcoming run of sequels is a reflection on when the creative forces behind the originals had good sequel ideas, not an intentional decision by the company to make only sequels. It's "the same portfolio, just not in the order we thought they would be. … Sometimes that’s just how it happens."

So, those of us worried that Pixar would stay on the sequel route can breathe a sigh of relief and all of us can look forward to more original Pixar movies. The next Pixar release will be Cars 3 on June 16, 2017.