Remember when Pixar was the company that hated sequels? That’s changed massively over the years, not least with the gargantuan success of the Toy Story series. While it appeared Toy Story 3 would be the end of the line – it certainly felt like a perfect conclusion – Disney & Pixar have now announced a fourth instalment.
John Lasseter, director of the first two Toy Story movies will helms the film, which promises to ‘open a new chapter in the lives of Woody, Buzz Lightyear and the Toy Story’ gang. The story was dreamt up by Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter and Lee Unkrich, the storytellers who have been the driving force behind all three Toy Story films. That will now be turned into a script by the writing team of Rashida Jones and Will McCormack (Celeste and Jesse Forever).
“We love these characters so much; they are like family to us, said Lasseter. “We dont want to do anything with them unless it lives up to or surpasses whats gone before. Toy Story 3 ended Woody and Buzzs story with Andy so perfectly that for a long time, we never even talked about doing another Toy Story movie. But when Andrew, Pete, Lee and I came up with this new idea, I just could not stop thinking about it. It was so exciting to me, I knew we had to make this movieand I wanted to direct it myself.
The film already has a US release date of June 16th, 2017, and it should be out in the UK around the same time.