Breaking – John Lasseter to Direct Toy Story 4 – Updated

Disney’s quarterly earnings call took place Thursday afternoon and among the updates from the day, Bob Iger stunned audiences with the news that John Lasseter would return to the director’s chair to create Toy Story 4. The idea for the film, releasing on June 16, 2017, was pulled together by none other than Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter, Lee Unkrich, and John Lasseter – who were the driving force between the first three Toy Story features. John Lasseter also elaborated on some of his excitement for the project –

We love these characters so much; they are like family to us. We don’t want to do anything with them unless it lives up to or surpasses what’s gone before. Toy Story 3 ended Woody and Buzz’s story with Andy so perfectly that for a long time, we never even talked about doing another Toy Story movie. But when Andrew, Pete, Lee and I came up with this new idea, I just could not stop thinking about it. It was so exciting to me, I knew we had to make this movie—and I wanted to direct it myself.

John Lasseter

Listen below as Bob Iger reveals the news of Toy Story 4.

The news has had mixed reviews on social media, but we’re remaining ever-optimistic as Pixar has created some of the most magical films in animation history. In fact, many people expressed similar concerns when Toy Story 3 was announced and that movie simply wowed audiences. Of course, it all comes down to the story since we already have immense love and respect for the film’s characters.

To that end, Pixar has green-lit the writing team of Rashida Jones and Will McCormack (Celeste and Jesse Forever) to handle the script while Galyn Susman (Toy Story of TERROR! and Toy Story That Time Forgot) will produce the film.

Adding to the big news of the day, John Lasseter also sat down and talked with the Los Angeles Times to discuss the project and had this to say – 

Toy Story 4 will be a love story and will pick up where Toy Story 3 left off, when Woody, Buzz Lightyear and the rest of the series’ toy chest of characters were handed down to a little girl named Bonnie. 

A lot of people in the industry view us doing sequels as being for the business of it, but for us it’s pure passion. We only make sequels when we have a story that’s as good as or better than the original. We don’t just, because of the success of a film, automatically say we’re going to do a sequel and then figure out what we’re going to do.

After the news of the release settled in our minds, we immediately thought of the existing slate of Pixar films coming out and wondered how this would fit into the mix. Would this film push back another film in production? Would it simply be added to the list? Only time will tell, but here is the timeline of films that have been announced to date:

• Inside Out – June 19, 2015
• The Good Dinosaur – November 25, 2015
• Finding Dory – June 17, 2016
• Toy Story 4 – June 16, 2017
• Lee Unkrich’s untitled film about the Dia De Los Muertos holiday – Date unknown
• Cars 3 – Date unknown
• The Incredibles 2 – Date unknown

What are your thoughts on the Toy Story 4 news? Leave a comment below, join us on Google Hangout, or join the conversation on the Pixar Post Forum thread dedicated to Toy Story 4.

GOOGLE HANGOUT

Join us this evening, November 6 at 10:00 PM EST / 7:00 PM PST to chat about the news of the day. We’ll discuss John Lasseter directing the film along with your thoughts on the story, the upcoming slate of Pixar films, and the writing team tackling the project. You can watch the Google Hangout directly on the Google+ page, on YouTube, or streaming in our post below.