Back when the whole Pixar/Disney tug of war was going on, the evil masterminds at the Mouse House put a third Toy Story movie into production in-house, leaving Pixar out. When the dust from that cleared and John Lasseter and Steve Jobs emerged as the Kings of Disney, it seemed like Toy Story 3 might just fade away, along with other shitty projects Lasseter was purging (we’re looking at you, Dame Elton John).
It turns out that calling Toy Story 3 dead may have been premature, as the project has moved back to Pixar and work is being done. Supposedly the story has Buzz Lightyear getting caught up in a toy recall and being sent back to Taiwan. I’m actually disappointed this is back to Pixar, as they will handle the subject with humor, grace and probably a little bit of biting social satire. If it had stayed with Disney’s in-house goons it would have been a freak show of racism and horror. Now we’ll never get to see that.
Meanwhile, Incredibles 2 is being held up by the fact that Brad Bird has been tapped to replace Jan Pinkava on Ratatouille, which I never even heard of until right now. Jan Pinkava sounds like an armoire you would buy at Ikea, though. It now comes in Robin Egg!