Tom Hanks explains why the original ‘Toy Story’ movie was ‘thrown out’
Tom Hanks revealed that “Toy Story” was almost a completely different movie – one with snarky, wisecracking toys instead of the beloved Woody and Buzz Lightyear that made it a Pixar classic.
During Hanks’ recent appearance on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” the talk show host pointed out that it has been 30 years since “Toy Story” was released. But Hanks was swift to correct Colbert.
“Actually, it was more than 30 years,” he said on Monday, Nov. 3.
Hanks went on to share that director John Lasseter decided to scrap the original version of the animated film after about two years of work.
“Tim Allen and I and everybody involved, we recorded a ‘Toy Story’ movie (and) about 80 minutes of it … was completely thrown out,” he recalled.
“Toy Story” follows Woody (voiced by Hanks) and Buzz Lightyear (Allen) as the two toys vie for the attention of the young boy who they belong to, Andy. While the film that was released in 1995 had themes of friendship and determination at its core, the first draft relied on gags and surly banter instead of emotion.
“Toy Story” was released in 1995, and has been followed by four sequels, the most recent of which is due out next year. (Dave J Hogan/Dave J Hogan/Getty Images)
“The people who were running the studio – not Pixar, Pixar people are great – the people running the studio, they said, ‘Look, it’s a cartoon. Let’s make them wisecrack-y and improv and insult each other and come up with goofy things,’ which we sort of did for a while,” the East Bay native continued. “Quite frankly, it didn’t work. It wasn’t ‘Toy Story.’ It wasn’t what Pixar was going for.”
That’s when Lasseter decided “to start it all over from scratch.”
It’s safe to say that it was worth the effort. The film was a box office success, grossing roughly $373 million and earning Emeryville-based animation studio Pixar three Academy Award nominations. It was eventually followed by “Toy Story 2” (1999), “Toy Story 3” (2010) and “Toy Story 4” (2019.)
A fifth installment is expected to hit theaters on June 19, as the team of toys learns how to play nice with a new technology tablet named Lily Pad.
This article originally published at Tom Hanks explains why the original ‘Toy Story’ movie was ‘thrown out’.
