Pete Docter Talks Lessons Learned From “Lightyear” Ahead of Toy Story 5
While Disney has returned to its role as box office king with recent blockbusters Avatar: The Way of Water and Ant Man and the Wasp Quantumania, there was a time early last year where people were questioning if Disney’s run was over.
Following the disappointing results of West Side Story and Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness, Disney released the absolute box office bomb that was Lightyear.
A Misstep For Pixar
Tangentially related to the Toy Story franchise, the film grossed $226.4 million at the box office with a budget of $200 million.
After Disney realized that the film was going to flop at box office, the company and its fans came up with any excuse that they could for why the film bombed.
Some critics argued that the film ran into too tough of competition with Top Gun: Maverick and Jurassic World Dominion, others questioned the marketing behind the film.
For his part, Bob Iger tried to blame the COVID-19 pandemic, arguing that families were not returning to theaters. Two weeks later Minions: The Rise of Gru opened to $107 million at the domestic box office.
What Killed Lightyear
In the end, what doomed Lightyear was probably that it was a film nobody wanted. Disney and Pixar misjudged the affection people have for Buzz Lightyear, and the idea of taking the character and turning him into a real human adventurer simply did not work.
Pixar COO Pete Docter talked about the disconnect between what audiences wanted from Pixar, and the film that was eventually released.
“We’ve done a lot of soul-searching about that because we all love the movie. We love the characters and the premise. I think probably what we’ve ended on in terms of what went wrong is that we asked too much of the audience. When they hear Buzz, they’re like, great, where’s Mr. Potato Head and Woody and Rex? And then we drop them into this science fiction film that they’re like, What?” Docter opined.
While Disney and Pixar tried to set audience expectations for what Lightyear would be, in the end the film was simply a bridge too far.
“Even if they’ve read the material in press, it was just a little too distant, both in concept, and I think in the way that characters were drawn, that they were portrayed. It was much more of a science fiction. And Angus, to his credit, took it very seriously and genuinely and wanted to represent those characters as real characters.
But the characters in ‘Toy Story’ are much broader, and so I think there was a disconnect between what people wanted/expected and what we were giving to them” Docter said.
Toy Story Is Back
While Lightyear may have failed to connect with audiences. Docter and Pixar seemed to have learned from their mistakes.
The company announced earlier this year that Tim Allen would be reprising his role of Buzz Lightyear alongside Tom Hanks as Woody in the upcoming Toy Story 5.
With the next installment in the Toy Story franchise, Pixar wants to build on what has come before the film, within the comfort of what fans have come to expect.
“I think it’ll be surprising,” Docter teased. “It’s got some really cool stuff that you haven’t seen before.”
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