Thursday, February 8, 2007

FILM: Toy Story 3 Confirmed For 2009.

New Toy Story will be fully financed by Pixar.

Over the past few years there has been more than a bit of tension between the folks at Pixar and the executives of Disney. Pixar threatened to leave the company and in return Disney threatened that they would release a crappy quality, straight to DVD, third Toy Story film (something along the lines of Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea). Now, Pixar didn't want their prized franchise being flushed down the toilet by greedy Disney executives, so they decided not to leave (along with other reasons).

Now things seem to have settled between the two studios. Disney calmed down and was able to acquire the animation studio without too many hassles. Pixar was then able to place powerful people in high enough positions inside of Disney to create Toy Story 3 under their own creative control.

John Lasseter, the chief creative officer at Pixar, has made it clear that Toy Story 3 will be done right and that the animation studio will put all of it's resources towards the feature film.



For starters, Lasseter announced that his Toy Story 2 co-director, Lee Unkrich, will direct the third installment of the trilogy. He also announced that Oscar-nominated writer Michael Arndt (Little Miss Sunshine) will write the thing. Tom Hanks and Tim Allen are also set to return along with the regular voice cast (except for Slinky Dog, Wheezy the Penguin, and Lenny the Binoculars due to voice actor deaths).

I'm fairly excited to see what Pixar and Disney can pump out here. While I may not be a fan of 3D animation flicks I respect what Pixar was done with the first two Toy Story films. While other studios pump out celebrity driven 3D garbage every few months, Pixar keeps their heads and (usually) releases well thought out films.

What do you guys think of a third Toy Story movie? Is it a good thing or are they just milking the cash cow for all she's worth? Post a comment, let me know.

Cheers.

 Subscribe in a reader

2 comments:

sw said...

I have great respect for Lasseter, and actually enjoyed Toy Story 2 more than Toy Story 3. I trust they wouldn't start work on a third one without a good solid plot (written by someone I truly respect) - it's been proven that the Toy Story characters can be pretty versatile.

Hopefully the Disney/Pixar controversy keeps far away from this film. I've yet to be disappointed by Pixar!

OK, maybe Cars.

Larry_Chimp_Man said...

I agree. Pixar is head and shoulders above the rest of the other studios competing in this genre. Their compostions and storytelling skills are unmatched.

Hopefully Toy Story 3 is worth the wait.