Toy Story (franchise)

• 1. Introduction

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  Toy Story arrived in theaters on the 22nd of November, 1995, and it carried a secret that no film had ever carried before: every frame of it was made entirely by a computer. No hand-drawn cels, no painted backgrounds, no physical models on a sound stage. What audiences saw was the world's first feature-length computer-generated film, and it centered on a premise almost too simple to seem dangerous. Toys are alive. They talk, scheme, and love. They just do it where humans cannot see them.

  At the heart of that premise stood two figures who would become unlikely antagonists: Sheriff Woody, a vintage cowboy doll voiced by Tom Hanks, and Buzz Lightyear, a sleek modern spaceman voiced by Tim Allen. Their rivalry for the affection of a boy named Andy would launch a franchise that would eventually gross more than $3.3 billion worldwide across its main films.

  The questions the story raised turned out to be durable ones. What happens to the things we love when we outgrow them? Who do we become when we are no longer someone's favorite? Those questions drove not just the first film but each chapter that followed, carrying audiences through a boy's childhood, into his college years, and eventually into a world where the toys themselves had to decide what came next.

  And yet the franchise nearly ended before it truly began. Toy Story 2, the film that proved the first was not a fluke, was originally designed to go straight to video.

• 2. An Unprecedented Beginning

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  John Lasseter directed the first film with a story he developed alongside Pete Docter, Andrew Stanton, and Joe Ranft. The screenplay came from Joss Whedon, Andrew Stanton, Joel Cohen, and Alec Sokolow, with Randy Newman composing the score. Newman's song "You've Got a Friend in Me" became the franchise's anthem.

  The Academy nominated the film for three awards: Best Original Screenplay, Best Original Score, and Best Original Song for Newman's contribution. It was the first animated film ever nominated for Best Original Screenplay. Lasseter himself received a Special Achievement Award for the development and inspired application of techniques that made possible the first feature-length computer-animated film.

  At the box office, the film's first five days of domestic release over Thanksgiving weekend earned $39.1 million. It placed first at the weekend box office with $29.1 million and held the top domestic position for two more weekends after that. It became the highest-grossing domestic film of 1995, and was the third-highest-grossing animated film of its era.

  The cultural footprint extended well beyond the theater. Buzz Lightyear and Sheriff Woody action figures were initially ignored by retailers before the film's release. Then more than 250,000 figures sold for each character before the film even opened, and demand kept expanding. By 2007, total sales had reached over 25 million units. Disney's Animated Storybook: Toy Story, a piece of companion software released in 1996, became the best-selling software title of that year, moving more than 500,000 copies.

• 3. The Sequel That Surprised Everyone

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  Toy Story 2 was not supposed to matter. Disney's executives initially planned a direct-to-video sequel with a 60-minute running time, the kind of product meant to extend a brand rather than build on one. What changed was the quality of the footage already in progress. The in-work imagery impressed Disney's leadership enough to reconsider, and the main characters' voice actors, Tom Hanks and Tim Allen, added their own pressure for a theatrical release.

  Lasseter returned as director for the second film, which was released on the 24th of November, 1999. The new story sent Woody into the hands of a greedy toy collector named Al McWhiggin, voiced by Wayne Knight, while Buzz led a rescue mission. Woody meanwhile uncovered his own history as a television star. Joan Cusack, Kelsey Grammer, Estelle Harris, and Jodi Benson joined the cast.

  The film opened at number one over Thanksgiving weekend, earning $57.4 million from 3,236 theaters over three days, averaging $17,734 per theater. It stayed at number one for two more weekends and finished as the third-highest-grossing film of 1999, earning over $497 million worldwide. That figure surpassed the first film's total of over $373 million.

  At the 53rd Golden Globe Awards, Toy Story 2 won Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy. The Academy nominated it for "When She Loved Me," performed by Sarah McLachlan. The first two films together were so influential that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences introduced the Best Animated Feature category in 2001, the year after their combined legacy had made the need for such a category undeniable.

• 4. When a Billion Dollars Changed Animation

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  Nearly eleven years passed between the release of Toy Story 2 and the third film's arrival on the 18th of June, 2010. Lee Unkrich, who had edited the first two films and co-directed the second alongside Ash Brannon, stepped into the director's chair. Lasseter remained involved as executive producer.

  The plot placed Andy on the edge of college, his childhood ending. The toys ended up accidentally donated to Sunnyside Daycare, ruled by a sinister teddy bear named Lotso, voiced by Ned Beatty. Jim Varney, who had voiced Slinky Dog in the first two films, had died in 2000; Blake Clark took on the role for the third. Michael Keaton, Timothy Dalton, Jeff Garlin, Kristen Schaal, and Bonnie Hunt joined the ensemble.

  The box office results were staggering. Toy Story 3 opened in 4,028 theaters, grossing $41.1 million on its opening day, the highest opening-day gross for an animated film on record at the time. Its opening weekend earned $110.3 million, the biggest opening weekend in Pixar's history. The film became the highest-grossing film of 2010 both domestically and worldwide. It was also the first animated film ever to cross the $1 billion mark. In August 2010, it surpassed Shrek 2 as the highest-grossing animated film of all time, holding that title until Frozen took it in March 2014.

  The Academy awarded Toy Story 3 Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song for "We Belong Together." The film also received nominations for Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Sound Editing. It was only the third animated film in Academy history to earn a Best Picture nomination, following Beauty and the Beast and Up.

• 5. A Fourth Film and a Franchise Reshaped

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  Toy Story 4, released on the 21st of June, 2019, carried with it a production history almost as dramatic as its story. The film was originally announced in November 2014, with Lasseter set to direct and Galyn Susman to produce. Rashida Jones and Will McCormack wrote an early screenplay from a story Lasseter developed with Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter, and Lee Unkrich.

  Lasseter stepped down from Pixar in 2017. Josh Cooley was named director, and Jonas Rivera replaced Susman as producer. Jones and McCormack also departed later that year, and Stephany Folsom took over the screenplay. Much of the original script had to be dropped, delaying the film's release. Don Rickles, who had voiced Mr. Potato Head across all prior films, died in 2017; Pixar used archival recordings of his voice to continue his role.

  The story found Woody reconnecting with Bo Peep, voiced again by Annie Potts, who had been absent since the second film. New voices included Keegan-Michael Key, Jordan Peele, Keanu Reeves, and Christina Hendricks. The film achieved the biggest opening weekend in the franchise's history, grossing $120.9 million domestically and $244.5 million internationally in its first weekend. It crossed $1 billion total, becoming the 43rd film ever to reach that mark.

• 6. Beyond the Screen

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  Buzz Lightyear's catchphrase "To infinity and beyond!" took on a life well outside movie theaters. Philosophers and mathematical theorists took up the line. Lucia Hall, writing in The Humanist, connected it to an interpretation of humanism, comparing it to the phrase "All this and heaven, too!" as an expression of contentment with earthly life alongside hope for what comes after.

  In 2008, during the STS-124 mission, astronauts carried a Buzz Lightyear action figure aboard the Discovery Space Shuttle. The figure participated in zero-gravity experiments as part of an educational program that used the catchphrase to engage students. That same year, the phrase made international news when a father and son reportedly repeated it to keep track of each other while treading water for 15 hours in the Atlantic Ocean.

  The free and open-source Linux distribution Debian takes its version codenames from Toy Story characters. This tradition originated because Bruce Perens worked at Pixar during the early development of Debian.

  In 2013, Pixar designed a sculpture called "Gromit Lightyear" for the Gromit Unleashed charity event, blending Buzz Lightyear with Gromit from the Aardman Animations series Wallace and Gromit. The piece sold for £65,000.

  According to Rotten Tomatoes, the Toy Story franchise holds the highest average critical rating of any franchise in the site's history, with an average of 99% across the main films. The first two films each earned 100% ratings. No other franchise has achieved that level of consistency across all its installments, with the Before trilogy, at 98%, the closest rival.