Buzz, Woody, and the entire Toy Story gang are some of the most beloved characters in all of Animation so, when Pixar announced (on November 6, 2014) that a fourth iteration of the film would hit theaters, we couldn’t have been more excited to see some of our favorites back up on the big screen.
Flash forward to January 2018 and Deadline is now reporting that Toy Story 4 has signed a new screenwriter, Stephany Folsom, to the project. Stephany took to Twitter shortly after the announcement noting, “Well, if you’ve been wondering what I’ve been up to lately…” and linked to Deadline’s article breaking the news.
Stephany’s message helped clear up one question we had (at least somewhat). If the film is slated to come out in a year-and-a-half, we had hoped she wasn’t a recent addition, or this could mean a date change. Of course, this doesn’t confirm that she has been on the project for a long time, but it implies a certain length of time.
The film, like many others, has undergone some pretty significant changes and is not highly uncommon in the animation industry (or Pixar). The number of alterations isn’t as common for sure, but changes happen often (below is a summary of known alterations).
- Director change — John Lasseter to Josh Cooley
- Producer change — Galyn Sussman to Jonas Rivera
- Date changes — June 16, 2017 to June 15, 2018 to June 21, 2019
- Screenwriter changes — Rashida Jones & Will McCormack to (rumored) Martin Hynes to Stephany Folsom.
You can read more about Stephany Folsom and her writing credits on her website. We’re excited to hear the project is still moving forward, but it really has us thinking that the original romantic comedy (searching for Bo Peep) storyline may be scrapped. Of course, we don’t have any information to lead us to believe this, but it just feels like all the changes would likewise lead to the story evolving as well.
What are your thoughts? Let us know your thoughts by leaving a comment below or chatting about it in the Pixar Post Forum.