Pixar CCO Addresses What Went Wrong With Toy Story Spin-Off Lightyear.

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Lightyear did not post box office receipts that were out of this world, and Pixar’s Chief Content Officer was saddened by that.

Walt Disney Pictures

Last year, Pixar’s Lightyear was meant to be one of Disney’s banker animations, spinning out the “true” story of Buzz Lightyear, the astronaut who inspired the famous toy from the movie. Coming in the form of a Pixar movie, it was quite hard to tell exactly what Lightyear wanted to be, and that was partly the reason why it did not fare well at the box office. In a new interview with The Wrap, Pixar Chief Content Officer Pete Docter addresses his disappointment at how Lightyear was received, as he, and those who worked on it, “all love the movie.” He explained:

“We’ve done a lot of soul-searching about that because we all love the movie. We love the characters and the premise. I think probably what we’ve ended on in terms of what went wrong is that we asked too much of the audience. When they hear Buzz, they’re like, great, where’s Mr. Potato Head and Woody and Rex? And then we drop them into this science fiction film that they’re like, What? Even if they’ve read the material in press, it was just a little too distant, both in concept, and I think in the way that characters were drawn, that they were portrayed. It was much more of a science fiction. And Angus, to his credit, took it very seriously and genuinely and wanted to represent those characters as real characters. But the characters in ‘Toy Story’ are much broader, and so I think there was a disconnect between what people wanted/expected and what we were giving to them.”

Toy Story 5 Will Bring Back The Familiarity of the Franchise

Walt Disney Pictures

Despite the disappointment of Lightyear, which tried to do something different with the Toy Story IP, those who couldn’t quite get on board the idea of a “real” Buzz Lightyear will be able to get back on familiar ground with the announcement that Toy Story 5 is now in development at Pixar.

Although many long-term fans of the franchise deemed the new sequel unnecessary after what many believed to be a perfect ending in Toy Story 4…which in actuality followed the perfect ending of Toy Story 3…the film is probably a safer bet than attempting to further deviate from the core characters of the franchise. The real question is how the movie will be able to deliver a story that lives up to what has come before without leaving a less than satisfying smudge on the franchise’s legacy.

However, Docter noted that one of Pixar’s constant traits is to never know exactly where their next movie is going, something he says is true of the Toy Story franchise. He commented:

“We’re just trying to make this movie. But that in making the movie, it takes you places, unexpected places, which is what I love about the creative process. If I knew exactly what I was doing when I started making a movie, there’d kind of be no point in making it. I discover so much along the way.”

Toy Story 5 is expected to arrive in a few years, while Lightyear and the rest of the Toy Story franchise are available to stream on Disney+.

You can view the original article HERE.