UPDATE: PIxar has announced a co-director to work with John Lasseter on Toy Story 4.
NewsUPDATE:
A brief update to this story. When Toy Story 4 was announced back in November, John Lasseter was the named director of the project. Now, however, Pixar has confirmed that Josh Cooley (who has worked as head of story on Inside Out) will be his Toy Story 4 co-director. Cooley started at Pixar as an intern on the film Cars. Toy Story 4 remains scheduled for 2017.
Here's our original story...
It's full circle for John Lasseter, as Disney/Pixar has announced that he's returning to the director's chair forToy Story 4. Lasseter directed the firstToy Story and co-directedToy Story 2. And whilst Toy Story 4had been rumoured for some time, it's now been officially confirmed.
The official announcement confirms that the new film "opens a new chapter in the lives of Woody, Buzz Lightyear and the Toy Story gang". The new story has come from John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter and Lee Unkrich, described not incorrectly as 'the storytellers who have been the driving force behind all three Toy Story films'.
It's a bold move and a tall order to pick the story up for the pretty much perfect ending to Toy Story 3. Lasster did say that "we don’t want to do anything with them unless it lives up to or surpasses what’s gone before. Toy Story 3 ended Woody and Buzz’s story with Andy so perfectly that for a long time, we never even talked about doing another Toy Story movie. But when Andrew, Pete, Lee and I came up with this new idea, I just could not stop thinking about it".
He added that "It was so exciting to me, I knew we had to make this movie - and I wanted to direct it myself". Lasseter's last movie as director was Cars 2.
Rashida Jones and Will McCormack are on board as writers, with Galyn Susman producing. And the film has a release date too: June 16th 2017.
More as we hear it...
