A little over 15 years ago, audiences around the world walked out of theaters thinking that they had just watched the finale in the beloved Toy Story series… but they turned out to be wrong. In addition to Pixar continuing to produce short films featuring the characters from the franchise, we saw the release of Toy Story 4 in 2019, Lightyear in 2022, and Toy Story 5 is coming in 2026. In that time, some fans have opined the further expansion of the canon, wishing on social media that the conclusion of Toy Story 3 had been a firm ending – and if you’re a part of that collection, the helmer of the next installment has some helpful advice for you.
Andrew Stanton, a Pixar legend, is writing and directing Toy Story 5 (which is penciled on the 2026 movie release calendar for June), and in a recent interview with Empire, he explained why he feels as though any Toy Story trilogy purists really shouldn’t worry about the series continuing to expand past the third chapter. He argues that the existence of the three movies as an arc isn’t actually impacted by more stories being told and that people who aren’t interested in seeing new sequels simply don’t have to pay attention to them. Said Stanton,
So 3 was the end… of the Andy years. Nobody’s being robbed of their trilogy. They can have that and never watch another if they don’t want to. But I’ve always loved how this world allows us to embrace time and change. There’s no promise that it stays in amber.
It’s really a philosophy that can be properly applied to all active franchises and remakes: nobody is forcing you to watch movies that you don’t want to watch, and it’s not as though studios are in a habit of hiding older canon titles while promoting new ones (in fact, it’s frequently the case in the streaming age that those older titles get a little extra bump in promotion as well).
In the case of Toy Story 5, Andrew Stanton explains that there was motivation to make the movie because there is a specific story he wanted to tell about modern childhood. The way that kids played and had fun in 1995 (when the original Toy Story was released) was infinitely different than the way that kids play and have fun today – principally because of technology – and the filmmaker wanted to explore that through the lens of Woody, Buzz, and all their friends.
Stanton has been a part of every installment of the Toy Story series, co-writing the screenplays for the first, second and fourth movies while getting a story credit on the third. He hasn’t been director of a film since 2016’s Finding Dory, but in addition to having Toy Story 5 set to come out next year, he has also completed on the sci-fi feature In The Blink Of An Eye, which is set up to be released by Hulu.
The first trailer for Toy Story 5 arrived earlier this month, and it has fans asking big questions about what’s going on in the upcoming sequel. It’s one of the most anticipated titles of the coming year, and we’ll definitely be writing a lot more about it here on CinemaBlend in the months to come.