In February, Disney announced that another movie in the Toy Story franchise was in development—an inevitable happening, clearly, given that Disney loves nothing so much as it loves making more movies in series, or making more versions of movies it has already made. What wasn’t known at the time was whether it would be Toy Story 5 or another spinoff like Lightyear.
But a hint came this week from original Toy Story star Tim Allen, who said on The Tonight Show that he and Tom Hanks have both been contacted about starring in the next film.
As everyone who was alive in or since the ’90s knows, in the Toy Story films, Tim Allen plays Buzz Lightyear, and Tom Hanks the friendly cowboy Woody. Most recently, they appeared in 2019’s Toy Story 4, a movie about which Leah Schnelbach had many thoughts.
In his Tonight Show appearance, Allen noted that “the writer that’s doing it wrote one of the better ones.” Which ones count as “the better ones” is a subjective matter (side note: this writer did not care for Toy Story 3 one bit), but over the years, the series has had quite a few writers, many of whom went on to make more movies with Disney.
Toy Story 4 has no fewer than ten credited writers (eight for the story, two for the screenplay, according to IMDb), which makes it maybe unlikely as the film Allen is referring to. Toy Story 3’s mere five credited writers include Michael Arndt (Little Miss Sunshine). Of course, Pixar standbys Pete Docter (Up) and Andrew Stanton (Wall-E) are among those credited for the original Toy Story’s original story, and it would seem like a sure thing if Disney got either of them back.
Nothing is certain, but you’re probably going to see Woody and Buzz on the big screen again someday.
