Andrew Stanton has spent over half his life with Toy Story. He was the lead writer on the first three films, a script savior on the fourth, and now serves as cowriter and co-director on Toy Story 5.
It was not the plan, but it was not not the plan, he said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. Stanton has done other things than think about Woody and Buzz for the past 34 years. At Pixar, he created A Bug's Life and two Oscar-winners: Finding Nemo and WALL-E. But Toy Story was the movie that started it all. The one he and his peers could not believe they got to make. Everything that has happened since, he said, has been gravy.
The new film, in theaters June 12, is widely expected to be one of the summer's biggest hits. The past two movies made more than a billion dollars, and this one is likely on the same path. While business drives many decisions regarding the series, Stanton said they have also had a lot of time to think about where the story should go. It is show business, yes, but they always try to put the show first.
The Evolution of the Franchise
There was an 11-year gap between Toy Story 2 and Toy Story 3, and nine more years before the fourth movie. Around 2008, when they had finally cracked the story for three and decided that it would be the end of their time with Andy as he went off to college, Stanton started to think wider. What if it went farther? What if it was a trilogy with one kid, closed that up, handed it off to another kid and started another one? That seemed really exciting because that is the way life goes with toys and mementos. They get passed down as hand-me-downs; they go from one kid to another.
Midway Through the Bonnie Era
One thing Stanton does not love about the Toy Story movies are the numbers. Toy Story is not Rocky; it is something else. They make it sound like old blockbuster thinking, he said. The culture has changed in the last 15 years. We all understand binging now. We all understand episodic stories. Not everything is great for it, but some are, and the Toy Story world is meant for that kind of lengthy thinking. Thus, four was the beginning of the Bonnie years. Though some actors were publicly saying it was the last Toy Story, as Woody went off with Bo Peep and the rest of the toys stayed with Bonnie, Stanton was pretty sure it was going to keep going. Bonnie's arc was not over yet. He just did not know they would come knocking on his door to figure out how.
He was skeptical at first because he did not know if where he would want to see it go would match with where the studio would want to see go. He cautiously said, let me write the crappy first draft, because he always writes a crappy first draft, but at least he would figure out where he would like to see it go just as a fan, let alone somebody that has been behind the camera with it. If they agreed on that fundamentally, then they could start working on it, and he would take the job. He also wanted a collaborator by his side, so Kenna Harris (Ciao Alberto) joined as cowriter and director. Harris was around the same age Stanton was on Toy Story, which felt like kismet. In Harris, he found someone who he could pass knowledge to and learn from as someone who grew up in a different era. Together, they found more commonalities than differences. It is really trying to find the things that are timeless, because childhood is going to keep happening.
The Screentime Conundrum
The fifth film sees the arrival of a new thing that is taking Bonnie's attention away from her toys: The Lilypad. Stanton kept checking with the lawyers to make sure it was not copyrighted or a real thing. It was not, they assured him. While the screentime conversation might not be new, how it affects playtime with these toys is something they had not yet explored. He feels like they are kind of late to the party. He was worried there would be some sort of resolution to it before they finished and there would not be so much dramatic controversy about it, but it is a legitimate concern that has no complete, finite answer. That is drama, it is in the gray. It is like how do you navigate something that you have to deal with? It is not just get rid of it. There were similar conversations about television for kids of his era, and he knew that like TV, technology is not going away. Toy Story 5 also places more direct emphasis on the power of play and imagination, something they dabbled with in the opening of Toy Story 3, but that they really get to lean into here.
Making 'Toy Story' for the Grandkids
Stanton does not think too much about box office anymore. At Pixar, they have always aimed higher than that. On the first film, he liked to say that they were making films for the grandkids. It might have been a bit of magical thinking for a fledgling studio and a man with a very young family, but in three decades, it has come true. Stanton's grandchild is now watching the Pixar movies he helped create. Just recently, Stanton was at Skywalker Ranch finishing the mix for Toy Story 5. It is the first time he has gotten to step back and take it in as a movie and not the jigsaw puzzle he has been building for so long. That is when it kind of breaks his brain. He goes, Oh my God, there are all the characters just living their lives. And that is the magic of movies. You forget that anybody behind the scenes made it and you just believe, and that is the real drug.
