Why This TOY STORY Star Almost Didn’t Return For New Movie

Published: June 16, 2026

By India McCarty

Wait — Tim Allen almost didn’t come back for TOY STORY 5?

While appearing on GOOD MORNING AMERICA, Allen was asked why he was “a little more hesitant” to come back to the franchise.

“Well, ’cause I—,” Allen said, before co-star Tom Hanks joked, “Tell the truth.”

Allen quipped back, “I’d have to be with him again,” before clarifying that it was due to the “intense” process of making TOY STORY 4.

“And it felt like it was over,” he continued. “How would you get that back together?”

Allen clearly got over his qualms about TOY STORY 5. In a 2024 interview with Collider, the HOME IMPROVEMENT star shared, “It’s a very, very clever story.”

“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],” Allen continued. “It’s really clever….I’m so blessed to be Buzz Lightyear, to be honest. It’s gonna be fun…It’s a really good story, guys. It’s really good.”

In TOY STORY 5, the beloved cast of characters are brought back together to take on a new foe: technology.

“Woody (voiced by Tom Hanks), Buzz Lightyear (voiced by Disney Legend Tim Allen), Jessie (voiced by Joan Cusack) and the rest of the gang’s jobs are challenged when they come face-to-face with Lilypad (voiced by Greta Lee), a brand-new tablet device that arrives with her own disruptive ideas about what is best for their kid, Bonnie (voiced by Scarlett Spears),” a description of the movie reads. “Will playtime ever be the same?”

Speaking to the BBC, Hanks said the movie’s story was relatable to its cast, as they had all “met that disinterest” of young people who “look down at their phone, look up, look down, look up.”

“This is a generational thing, where one generation has this thing that defines them technologically in society, and they pour everything into it,” he explained, adding that there’s “a moment in the movie where we look out on the cityscape and we see that blue glow of a phone in bedrooms and whatnot, and it does strike terror into the heart.”

TOY STORY fans are happy Allen decided to come back for another round as Buzz Lightyear.

Questions or comments? Please write to us here.