Disney’s Pixar animation studio is known for its ability to tell emotional, impactful stories, and it appears that’s going to continue with the upcoming Toy Story 4. Tom Hanks, who voices Woody in the series, recently spoke about his emotional final day recording lines. Speaking on the Chris Evans Breakfast Show, Hanks talked about how he was stunned when he read the final lines and considered what they meant for the franchise.
“It was the first time that we were going to be recording the end of the movie. Toy Story 4 is going to have an impactful ending,” Hanks said. “The way you record Toy Story; you’re in a room with the team that has created it. When I went in for my last day of recording, I wanted to have my back to them, because usually you’re facing them so you can look right up and you can talk about it. But I didn’t want to see them and I wanted to pretend they couldn’t see me. When I realized what they were going for, I realized, ‘Oh, this is a moment in history.'”
Hanks said the people who work at Pixar are geniuses, going on to call out the growth in the maturity and tone of the Toy Story films over time. “The emotional range of the movies has become more and more deep and profound and affecting,” he said.
Toy Story 3, which itself had an emotional, impactful ending, was released all the way back in 2010, so the sequel has been a long time coming.
Hanks follows co-star Tim Allen (Buzz Lightyear) in talking about how the ending of Toy Story 4 will be emotional.
“I don’t want to give it away, but this is an incredibly great story,” Allen said in an interview.
“It is so emotional, it’s so funny, it’s so big, the idea they’ve come up with, I’m startled. I couldn’t even get through the last scene. They’ve got great characters but a couple of scenes toward the end were really hard to get through.”
Toy Story 4 is due out in June 2019. It’s directed by Josh Cooley (Inside Out) and Jonas Rivera (Coco). When it was originally announced, John Lasseter was going to direct a script from Rashida Jones and Will McCormack. However, Lasseter left the project as director in July 2017, then went on a leave of absence when reports of sexual harassment allegations against him surfaced. It was at that point Jones revealed she and McCormack had stepped away from the project.
