Although Pixar was started in 1986, the animation studio made the jump to theatrical filmmaking in 1995 with Toy Story, the first entirely computer-animated feature film. 30 years later, not only is Pixar still regularly churning out movies, but the Toy Story franchise remains thriving. With half a year to go until Toy Story 5 hits the 2026 movies schedule, Tom Hanks, the voice of Woody, explained why “almost 80 minutes” of the original movie needed to be “completely thrown out,” thus necessitating the delay of its release.
When Hanks stopped by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to plug his new play, This World of Tomorrow, the titular host mentioned that its been 30 years since the public met Woody, Tim Allen’s Buzz Lightyear and the rest of these anthropomorphic toy characters. Hanks then started talking about how much longer it’s been for Toy Story cast and crew:
Actually, it was more than 30 years, because Tim Allen and I and everybody involved in it, we recorded a Toy Story movie, for about 80 minutes of it, that was completely thrown out. We had the animatics, the whole bit. Because the people who were running the studio — not Pixar, Pixar people are great — the people running the studio said, ‘Look, it's a cartoon. Let's make them wisecrack-y. Let’s let them improv and insult each other and come up with goofy things,’ which we sort of did for a while. And they showed it, and quite frankly, it didn’t work. It wasn’t Toy Story. It wasn’t what Pixar was going for.
One has to wonder that if this original version of Toy Story had made it to theaters, would it have been anywhere near as warmly received as the movie we got? Would it have spawned not just four sequels and a spinoff, but also short films, video games, comic books, theme park attractions and more? Technically we’ll never know for sure, but judging by what Tom Hanks said, it’s unlikely, especially considering the phone call he and the other castmates eventually received from Toy Story’s director. The actor continued:
So we got one of those calls, ‘John Lasseter would like to speak to you.’ John Lasseter was the director, the origin of Toy Story. And we said, ‘Ok…’ Whenever you get an advance call that says the director is going to talk to you, it means one of two things: you are so ‘f, apostrophe, star, ked’ that you are gone baby gone or they have this great idea that they want to invite you in on the process.
It was at this point that Tom Hanks and Stephen Colbert joked about how the latter experienced something similar when he learned that The Late Show was cancelled. Then, upon going back to Toy Story, Hanks wrapped up this portion of the interview with the following:
John called up and he said, ‘We looked at it and it's just not working, and we would like to start all over from scratch.’ We had been working on the movie for about two years. So then we began the process all over again, which is about a two and a half to three year process, which is why on the credits on the Toy Story. Movies, they always say Production Babies, because… the mother and dad meet, fall in love, go to confession, and then have a baby.
The rest, as they say, is history. Folks who watched Toy Story as a child are now showing this movie and its sequels to their own children. This is one of Pixar’s most well-known properties, and no doubt Disney is willing to drop a pretty penny to make sure that Tom Hanks and Tim Allen come back for each new theatrical installment. As much as I’d like to see those scrapped 80 minutes for historical purposes. I think we can all agree it was a good call that they were thrown out.
Toy Story 5 opens in theaters on June 19, 2026. Stream the previous movies and short films with your Disney+ subscription, and if you’re in New York City, catch Tom Hanks in The World of Tomorrow once it opens November 18th at The Shed.
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