Debuting all the way back in 1989, Matt Groening’s The Simpsons is the longest running primetime animated sitcom and the longest-running scripted show in prime time, beating the record previously set by Gunsmoke. Having been on the air for so long, it made sense that The Simpsons would get their own movie.
After The Simpsons Movie came out back in 2007 Simpson producer James L. Brook stated that they had no immediate plans to make a sequel. Yet for the next decade, fans kept wondering if a sequel would ever be made. Even Groening’s other animated show Futurama made a joke about fans who kept asking questions about another movie. According to Matt Groening, a major reason why a sequel was never made was because, “The first Simpsons Movie almost killed us.” Apparently making The Simpsons Movie put a lot of strain on the creative team and no one on the team was interested in enduring that kind of stress again.
Now just this year, Groening began teasing the possibility of a new movie. At the recent D23 event, the panelists explained that if Disney thought that making another Simpsons movie would be profitable, that sequel would likely be made. As of right now there are no definitive plans for another movie, but that does not mean that we won’t be seeing any less of the Simpson family or the other residents of Springfield.