As movies go, one of my all-time favourites – resulting in one of my all-time favourite franchises – is Toy Story.
Spring 1996 heralded a whole new take on storytelling for children and adults in animated features with the arrival of Pixar’s Toy Story, directed by John Lasseter, pairing Tom Hanks as Woody with Home Improvement’s Tim Allen as Buzz Lightyear, the story told through the eyes of the toys that wanted to be played with.
Side note – Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs goes into some fine detail about the very early days of Pixar with Jobs at the helm, how Toy Story came to be, the head-to-heads with Disney and much more around that period of the late 90s to mid 90s. But that’s a story I only jumped into last year.
Toy Story 2 followed in 1999, but it would be nearly 11 years later before a third movie would follow, with another nine years on before Toy Story 4 finally made it to cinemas and that, as it was then, seemed like that.
Until now, at least, with the release of the much-anticipated Toy Story 5 trailer, the fifth (and likely final-final) installment set to land in cinemas this June. And yes, that’s cinemas too, as it won’t be making an appearance on Disney Plus until (potentially) September/October, if not closer to Christmas.
The premise of Toy Story 5 builds on the tail end of 2019’s Toy Story 4, which saw Woody leave Jessie, Buzz and the rest behind to start a new life with Bo and reunite lost toys with children. There’s no sign of Bo in the poster above either, but the character is expected to be in the final movie.
The arrival of ‘big tech’ into Bonnie’s world soon sees the toys left behind as screentime takes over, something a lot of us are only too well aware of. Will playtime ever be the same?
Chalk 19 June into your diaries for a cinema trip to find out.
