The official announcement at D23 that Pixar’s Andrew Stanton (“Finding Dory,” “WALL-E,” “Finding Nemo”) will write and direct “Toy Story 5” (June 19, 2026) is a big deal. Stanton co-wrote the previous four “Toy Story” films and received Oscar nominations for the original film and the third film.
But now, as director, he finally has full control over the franchise he helped build, so if there is to be a fifth Toy Story, he would be the perfect director for several reasons.
First, Stanton has been fascinated by science fiction and the dangers of ubiquitous technology since WALL-E. The story for the fifth Toy Story film allows him to deepen that fascination even further.
“Let’s face it,” Stanton said Friday night at a packed Honda Center in Anaheim. “Toys have serious competition these days with phones, tablets and technology everywhere. So this time it’s toys versus technology. Oh, and there’s one more thing: There’s a little problem with 20 rogue Buzz Lightyear action figures that are stuck in toy mode and are going to cause significant problems for everyone.”
This interest in the cultural impact of technology is a continuation of what we’ve seen in “WALL-E” and Stanton’s live-action films, including “John Carter,” his recent appearances on “Stranger Things” and “3 Body Parts,” and likely his upcoming “In the Blink of an Eye.”
The main reason, however, is that Stanton cut his teeth at Pixar as co-creator of the groundbreaking “Toy Story” (1995): the first computer-animated feature film in history. Since then, he’s been involved in every “Toy Story” film, reworking the story of each one and blending old ideas with new ones, without ever fully taking the reins of Bullseye.
The second animator hired at the studio in 1990 after Pixar co-founder John Lasseter, he worked on the original treatment of the film with Lasseter (who directed the first two “Toy Story” films) and Pete Docter (Pixar’s current chief creative officer and director of “Monsters, Inc.,” “Up,” “Inside Out” and “Soul”).
But that treatment was very different from the eventual story of Andy’s iconic toys: It involved Tinny, the one-man wind-up toy from Lasseter’s Oscar-winning short film “Tin Toy,” who has a series of adventures with a ventriloquist’s dummy. The revised treatment expanded into a buddy movie with many of the familiar storylines, but it was the scripts by Stanton, Joss Whedon, Joel Cohen and Alec Sokolow that finally included Woody (Tom Hanks), Buzz (Tim Allen) and the rest of the gang.
They took storytelling inspiration from live-action films, and the writers attended Robert McGee’s story structuring seminar, which draws on Aristotle’s Poetics and focuses on navigating a series of obstacles – all to see what personality traits would emerge from each of the toys.
“We immersed ourselves in this fantasy world and wondered what would happen if the toys were alive?” Stanton told Creative Screenwriting.
But Disney halted production on November 19, 1993 – known in Pixar history as “Black Friday” – forcing Stanton and the co-writers to rework the story. They made Woody more appealing and less of a jerk than a responsible leader, and Buzz became more of an action hero who doesn’t realize he’s a toy. The important breakthrough was creating a permanent connection between the old and new toys, whose purpose in life is to make Andy happy.
Toy Story 2 (1999) began as a direct-to-video sequel, with Stanton again serving as head screenwriter, but quickly moved to a theatrical release when the plot showed promise. Buzz and the gang rescue a broken Woody from the hands of greedy toy collector Al (Wayne Knight) – a minor character from the first film – and help him realize that they belong together to serve Andy.
This film also suffered from severe production problems and had to be completely reworked in a single tense weekend to find a common thread. It was finally finished last year and Stanton learned the important credo: “Be fooled as quickly as possible.”
“Toy Story 3” (2010), directed by Lee Unkrich, the editor of the first two films and co-director of “Toy Story 2”, was made after Disney acquired Pixar in 2006. In the third film, Andy goes to college and the toys get stuck in a daycare center, where they eventually have a new child named Bonnie.
Lasseter, who by now ran both Disney and Pixar, called a two-day brainstorming retreat at the same Northern California cabin where they hatched Toy Story. Stanton, Docter, Unkrich and the late animator Joe Ranft attended. Although they considered a leftover idea, it didn’t hold up to scrutiny. Overnight, they rewatched the first two films and the next day came up with the premise of a major shift that completed Woody’s arc with Andy. Once again, it was a combination of old and new ideas.
Stanton worked with Lasseter and Unkrich on the story and then wrote the treatment. He also promoted the horrific scene in which the toys are nearly destroyed in the incinerator. In the meantime, Unkrich worked on the script with screenwriter Michael Arndt (“Little Miss Sunshine”).
Toy Story 4 (2019) began production in 2015 with Lasseter directing. It was a love story between Woody and Bo Peep (Annie Potts), who was not in the previous film. Stanton even secretly began working on the treatment with Lasseter while Toy Story 3 was still in production. However, in 2016, Lasseter handed over the directorial duties to newcomer Josh Cooley, his co-director, and was pushed out by Pixar and Disney a year later due to an alleged history of unwanted sexual advances.
Rashida Jones and Will McCormack worked on an early draft of the script, but left the project due to “creative differences” amid the Lasseter scandal, and Stanton rewrote the script with Stephany Folsom. The difficulty for Stanton, however, was developing a new story arc for Woody. Fortunately, he understands his nuances better than anyone (which gives him his “sincere sarcasm”) and was guided by what was going on in his personal life at the time.
Stanton’s children were out of the house, and Woody was ready to leave it all behind to go on an exciting new adventure in the wild with Bo Peep. As for Forky (Tony Hale), the neurotic spork, he started out as a passing gag who eventually became a key character when he was conceived as a creation of Bonnie and Woody’s pal on his existential journey to independence.
This brings us to Toy Story 5, and almost 30 years later, things have come full circle. Woody is separated from the gang and is now the outsider, even though they need him more than ever.
“We all learned something about loyalty, belonging and friendship,” Stanton said at D23. “These characters gave us a unique perspective on growing up and life. And in all of the ‘Toy Story’ movies, the toys’ job, more than anything, was to be there for their children. And in ‘Toy Story 5,’ the toys’ job becomes exponentially more difficult when they’re faced with what kids are obsessed with today: electronics.”
Now Stanton and the rest of the old toy gang need some of their old-fashioned ingenuity to prove their worth to the kids again.
