Toy Story 5 will see characters go ‘head-to-head’ with technology

Toy Story 5 will see Buzz Lightyear, Woody and the rest of the gang in “serious competition” with electronic devices.

Pixar chief creative officer Pete Docter appeared onstage at Disney fan convention D23 to announce that Finding Nemo and Wall-e filmmaker Andrew Stanton will write and direct the next instalment – set for release in the summer of 2026.

The D23 audience was shown an image of little girl Bonnie, who inherited the toys from original owner Andy, under the duvet with a tablet as the playmates looked downcast at the end of the bed.

Docter described Stanton – who co-created the original Toy Story film – as a “genius”, while introducing him to the stage in California.

“As you can imagine, Toy Story holds a special place in my heart,” Stanton said.

“Through the experiences of these toys, we’ve all learnt about loyalty, belonging and friendship.

“These characters have given us a unique perspective about growing up, navigating life, and in all of the Toy Story films above anything else, the job of a toy is to be there for their kid.

“And with Toy Story 5, the toys’ job gets exponentially harder when our toy group goes head-to-head with what kids are obsessed with today – electronics.”

Stanton said the toys have “some serious competition these days with phones, tablets, technology everywhere – so this time around it is toy-meets-tech.”

Since the first film was released in November 1995, Toy Story has become a celebrated franchise with three sequels.

During an earlier D23 panel marking its 30 years, Stanton said the original film began life as a “half-baked idea about a ventriloquist dummy and Tinny from Tin Toy having a road trip together”.

He said Disney picked the idea over two others – James And The Giant Peach and Bob The Dinosaur.

The panel also heard how star Tom Hanks conjured up Woody’s celebrated catchphrase “there’s a snake in my boot”.

The audience were shown a printed list titled “ideas for Woody’s pull-string dialogue lines” dated February 3 1993, which had three handwritten phrases at the bottom.

“Those were scripted lines that we gave Tom (Hanks) to read from, pull-string recordings from Woody but that is my handwriting on the bottom, those were ones he made up,” Mr Stanton said.

“That is me writing them down what he had said and they’re now law. This was from his first session, he kept going.”

Toy Story, an animated comedy about a group of toys, features Tim Allen as superhero action figure Buzz Lightyear and Hanks as a pull-string cowboy doll named Woody.

Bonnie Arnold, who produced the original film, said the actors “weren’t our first choices but we did get there”.

The team pitched to Hanks first who they said had lost a lot of weight as he was filming Philadelphia at the time – which later won him the Oscar for best actor.

Meanwhile, Arnold said Disney had “grossly underestimated” how much it would cost to make the original Toy Story film, joking “we were counting the paperclips”.

“It is the cheapest movie we ever made,” Stanton said.

The pair recalled how staff would make food at home and bring it in for staff working overtime, as well as bringing in their own chairs for the cinema room to watch drafts of the film.