How Disney Could Replace Tom Hanks in the Next TOY STORY

Published: June 28, 2026

By Movieguide® Staff

Tom Hanks has voiced Woody the cowboy for 31 years across five TOY STORY movies — and he’s now openly wondering what happens when that run finally ends.

“Time is undefeated,” the two-time Academy Award winner told Entertainment Weekly. “The question would be whether or not we could cobble together some version of me. Every word we have ever recorded in time in TOY STORY is on digital media somewhere, so they could put together anything they would want.”

The admission came as TOY STORY 5 — directed by Andrew Stanton and released June 19 — shattered franchise records with a $160 million domestic opening weekend and $312 million globally, the second-highest opening for any animated movie in history, behind only INCREDIBLES 2.

Hanks and co-star Tim Allen, who returns as Buzz Lightyear, both called the prospect of an AI-generated replacement “a scary thought.” Hanks traced the concern back to Robert Zemeckis’ 2004 Christmas movie THE POLAR EXPRESS.

“The first time we did a movie that had a huge amount of our own data locked in a computer — literally what we looked like — was a movie called THE POLAR EXPRESS,” Hanks said. “We saw this coming, we saw that there was going to be this ability to take zeros and ones from inside a computer and turn it into a face and a character. That has only grown a billion-fold since then.”

Disney has not announced any plans for a TOY STORY 6, nor signaled it would use AI-generated dialogue without Hanks’ involvement. But the actor is thinking carefully about what any future installment would need to justify its existence.

“If you’re gonna do another TOY STORY, it better be worthwhile,” Hanks told Entertainment Weekly. “It better be great. You better be examining some theme that is not just dragging it out because people like the title. I mean, it is a huge corporate business without a doubt — but unless it’s good, new, fresh, there’s no reason to do it at all.”

TOY STORY 5 seems to have cleared that bar. Hanks told PEOPLE the fifth installment is “a vibrant and proper chapter in the TOY STORY canon,” adding, “None of us can believe that we’re still a part of it.”

Audiences agreed. Paul Dergarabedian, head of marketplace trends at media analytics firm Rentrak, told CNBC the movie “had appeal across every imaginable audience demographic and thus became the ultimate four-quadrant movie.”

Movieguide® awarded TOY STORY 5 four stars and a +1 family content rating, calling it “a wonderful ride that recreates and expands upon the joys and emotions from TOY STORY 2 in a great new adventure.” The movie’s ending — a surprise church wedding — drew particular praise, along with the movie’s strong promotion of traditional marriage, repentance, and good parenting.

TOY STORY 5 puts technology itself in the villain’s chair, centering on Bonnie’s jealous new tablet, Lilypad, which lures her away from physical play and real friendships. Movieguide® has reported on exactly this problem for years, and commended the movie for taking it seriously on a major stage.

As for Hanks’ AI concerns, they sit squarely in a larger conversation that families, artists, and lawmakers are still working through — who owns a voice, a face, decades of creative work — and what happens when the courts haven’t caught up to the technology capable of replicating all of it.

“Anybody can now recreate themselves at any age they are by way of AI or deep fake technology,” Hanks said. “Outside the understanding of AI and deepfake, there’ll be nothing to tell you that it’s not me and me alone.”

TOY STORY 5 is now playing in theaters. Read Movieguide®’s full review here.

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