Comedic actor Tim Allen will be returning to the “Toy Story” franchise after Disney’s experiment with a woke “Lightyear” tanked amid company woes.
Allen will return to voice the character “Buzz Lightyear” for “Toy Story 5” after actor Chris Evans replaced him to do Lightyear’s voice in that animated film, which flopped at the box office.
“See ya soon Woody, you are a sad strange little man and you have my pity. And off we go to a number 5! To infinity and beyond!” Allen tweeted in a post containing a photo of his character.
See ya soon Woody, you are a sad strange little man and you have my pity. And off we go to a number 5! To infinity and beyond! pic.twitter.com/bwRzE487Vi
— Tim Allen (@ofctimallen) February 9, 2023
The extent of Allen’s involvement in the series as well as details about the film’s plot are still unknown.
The tanking of “Lightyear” comes amid a decision by Disney to add back a lesbian kissing scene after initially removing it amid an outcry from the public. In addition, critics point to other so-called ‘woke’ elements of the film which they claim only added to its paltry $51 to $55 million opening.
While earnings are likely to rise somewhat, “over at the far-left Deadline — along with all kinds of excuses that conspicuously avoid the woke propaganda in Lightyear — they are already calling it a disaster,” Breitbart News noted.
The entertainment outlet noted:
Well, this wasn’t suppose to happen. Disney’s Lightyear, despite an A- CinemaScore and 4 stars/85% positive on PostTrak, is coming in way under its $70M-$85M projection with a $51M-$55M 3-day weekend to Universal/Amblin’s second weekend of Jurassic World Dominion with $57.1M. Jurassic could even reach $66.3M through the four-day Juneteenth holiday.
What the hell happened here? Despite the lowest Rotten Tomatoes rating of the Toy Story franchise at 77% Certified Fresh, it’s clear no one in great quantity is going to see the origin story of Buzz Lightyear. Understand that a Pixar movie and a Jurassic movie have played in close proximity to each other on the calendar before, and they both walked away with an embarrassment of riches. While we’ve mentioned that spinoffs always open lower than the core franchise films (take your pick: Fantastic Beasts vs. Harry Potter, Hobbs & Shaw vs. Fast & Furious and Bumblebee vs. Transformers), this could be a case of going to the Toy Story well too soon, too fast, despite the fact that theater closures and a pandemic stood between now and the last Toy Story 4 three years ago.
John Nolte of Breitbart noted that Variety attempted to blame several factors including making a franchise too quickly and the current state of the economy, which he ridiculed.
Instead, he blamed the movie’s very woke overtones.
“Kids are not ready for this, their parents certainly aren’t, and the crashing and burning of this $200 million piece of propaganda should tell you most people agree,” he wrote.
