In a time where every popular Hollywood franchise seems obliged to keep cranking out sequels until audiences are sick to death of them, the upcoming Toy Story 4 has been met with some backlash for continuing a series that so many fans feel was ended on a near-perfect note with 2010’s Toy Story 3.
But going by this recent statement from Tom Hanks, Pixar’s next release packs a formidable ending of its own that could get the tears rolling all over again. Speaking on The Chris Evans Breakfast Show, the voice of Woody explained how he struggled to get through recording the final scene of Josh Cooley’s film.
“It was the first time that we were going to be recording the end of the movie, and Toy Story [4] is going to have an impactful ending,” Hanks said. “The way you record Toy Story, you’re in a room with the team that has created it. When I went in for my last day of recording, I wanted to have my back to them, because usually you’re facing him so he can look right up and you can talk about it.
“But I didn’t want to see them and pretend they couldn’t see me. When I realised what they were going for, I realised, ‘Oh, this is a moment in history’.”
If Hanks is just playing the hype game here, then he really is going all in with this pitch. What’s more, his co-star Tim Allen made similar claims back in September, while making an unexpected comparison between next year’s release and Avengers: Infinity War.
“Yes. I can’t believe it. I gotta resist getting emotional because I don’t wanna give it away but this is an incredibly great story. If you’re at all a big superhero fan, Infinity War – I’m a big superhero fan – that didn’t seem like it was going to work [but] it was a lot of vignettes that all made sense. This, Toy Story 4, [did that]. We’ve only been through it once, there will be several more incantations, but it is so emotional, it’s so funny, it’s so big the idea that they’ve come up with. I’m startled. [Toy Story 3] I thought was amazing. This one, I couldn’t even get through the last scene, okay?”
From the sound of things, we probably shouldn’t be taking this Infinity War comparison too literally, with Allen seemingly bringing up the Marvel mega-hit largely for its structure, and perhaps also its ending’s tendency to leave audiences feeling wrecked.
Toy Story 4 hasn’t had the easiest of journeys to cinemas. In recent years, the film has suffered heavy delays and extensive rewrites, with Annie Potts claiming a few months ago that about three quarters of the script was scrapped at one point. Nonetheless, it looks like the movie will finally be hitting theaters on June 21st, 2019, and given Pixar’s reputation for making grown adults cry, there’s a pretty good chance that Hanks and Allen’s warnings are very legit.