Being a part of Gen Z means you have to have watched at least one Disney Channel Original Movie (DCOM). These movies were my entire childhood. They include classics like High School Musical, Lemonade Mouth, and Cheetah Girls. While there are quite a few stand-alone movies, there are also some sequels and franchises. But some of these franchises don’t seem to stop. Is this good or should some of these franchises be left alone?
To start, let’s talk about the Descendents Franchise. The first Descendents movie came out in 2015 with an AMAZING start. The movie is about 4 teenage children of big-name villains, Maleficent, The Evil Queen, Jafar, and Cruella De Vil, given the chance to become good. The team is torn between helping their parents off the island prison they were sentenced to or starting over and becoming good. The movie had a stacked cast with not just Disney stars such as Dove Cameron and Cameron Boyce, but also Hollywood Stars such as Kristin Chenoweth. The trilogy ended with the barriers of the Isle of the Lost being taken down bringing the two worlds together in 2019. Five years later a fourth movie premieres, Descendents: Rise of Red, where we bring in new characters, including from Wonderland, and this summer we received another movie, Descendents: Wicked Wonderland.
I am not going to lie; the fourth movie was definitely not good. The costumes and wigs seemed cheap. There were few good songs. And the movie included time travel, which threw many viewers through a loop with different problems coming up left and right. This left little hope for the fifth movie. But Disney was taking notes and redeemed itself. The fifth movie had better costumes, catchy songs, and even solved some of the time travel problems. While it didn’t go as I thought it would, it was still a great DCOM. The only thing I really wished for was that we got to see more of the past HK characters from the fourth movie. It feels like Disney Channel hyped them up to play bigger parts, only for them to get a minute of screen time.
Next, I want to discuss the Zombies franchise. This series is about monsters slowly being introduced to the human world to live normal lives and leave the shadows. I absolutely love the first movie! And while I do like the rest of the franchise, again quality was going down. A lot of us know that there will always be some cringey moments in a DCOM, but it just felt like a lot in the second and third movies. I’m not sure if it was the script or the acting but it definitely felt off. The third movie ended in 2022 with the main character, Addison, finally finding out who she is and accepting all parts of herself and everyone going off to college. 2025 we received the fourth movie, introducing vampires and day walkers. While it was nice to see our favorite characters again, and I adored the love story between our two new heroes, Victor and Nova, it did not have me as interested as other movies.
Finally, I want to discuss our newest DCOM, Camp Rock 3. I have seen fan made teasers for a third Camp Rock movie for years, and it finally happened. The new Camp Rock was definitely one that came out of nowhere, in the sense that it has been SO long since we had an addition to the story. The first movie came out in 2008, where the main character, Mitchie, gets the chance to go to a camp full of musically talented teenagers. But she learns that most of the other campers have richer families and more experience, and Mitchie, being embarrassed that she does not, creates a web of lies to attempt to fit in. In the end she learns that she does not need to lie to make friends and is able to express herself. The second movie came out in 2010. Camp Rock is in trouble of being shut down due to not enough sign-ups and a new camp opening up close by. The two camps have a show down to try and show campers which is better and while the competing team won, Camp Rock still received more sign-ups for the next year. 16 years later, we have Camp Rock 3. The movie got great reviews, fans saying that it brought them nostalgia and the new main character, Sage, having FANTASTIC vocals.
Some of these new movies are great! Some could use some work. But the real question is, when did we last get a new idea for a DCOM stand alone or franchise? That would be in 2023, when we got movies, Prom Pact, The Slumber Party, and The Naughty Nine. Yes, this may have been only 2 years ago, but within that time, we have only gotten additions to stories that already have a good number of movies. And at the moment, all the movies set to come out next year are also sequels, including another Cheetah Girls, Zombies 5, and Halloween Town. While these are great movies that bring 2000’s kids’ nostalgia, I think we need something new. Disney seems to be living in the past, too nervous to try and make a new hit movie for fear of it bombing. These stories have to end at some point, right?