If there's one thing Pixar appears to have learned from the utter failure of 2022's Lightyear—an arguable premise, but go with us for a second—it's that people only really want to hear that one guy play Buzz Lightyear; and also he should be a toy, not a spaceman; and also maybe don't make the basic idea of your movie so hard to follow that your director has to issue multiple statements trying to explain how real it is? Anyway, Pixar definitely learned one of those, with Tim Allen announcing today that he's just gotten back into the recording booth to voice Star Command's most stalwart little plastic man for the upcoming Toy Story 5.
This is per Collider, which was talking to Allen about his new Kat Dennings sitcom Shifting Gears, which does indeed sound like a real Tim Allen-ass sitcom. (Allen plays an older car restoration guy whose life gets turned upside down when his adult daughter is forced to move back in with him. But will a gruff but loving understanding about generational differences emerge from their inevitable conflicts?!) But he did get on the topic of Toy Story 5, which is expected to arrive in theaters some time in 2026, admitting it was "really, really weird to get back in it." Allen, who says he just got done with a five-hour recording session for the movie, also sounds pretty hyped about the project, though, which will reportedly see him playing multiple Buzzes. Buzzi? Captains Lightyear.
Here's Allen:
It’s a very, very clever story. Do you wanna do five of these? I don’t really believe it’s about the money. I’m sure they want it to be a success, but that’s not why they did it. Had they not come up with a brilliant script, they wouldn’t have done it and they wouldn’t have called me and Tom [Hanks]. It’s really clever. It was really a struggle to get, and then maybe two hours in, I was doing Buzz. I’m so blessed to be Buzz Lightyear, to be honest. It’s gonna be fun. I think we’re a year out. I’ve gotten up to the third act. We’ll do the third act. And then, we’ll go back and clean it. And then, I’ll do it about five more times. It’s a really good story, guys. It’s really good.
May we all be so blessed to be Buzz Lightyear, in these, the closing days of this year of our lord 2024.
