Polygon asked Stanton why he decided to direct his first Pixar film since 2016’s Finding Dory and the answer convinced me that Toy Story 5 probably won’t be remake slop (bold mine):
Polygon: You've worked on a lot of Pixar movies of the years, but you've never directed a Toy Story movie until now. What was the motivation to do this one?
Stanton: There's no simple answer to this. I was asked, and it wasn't on my radar. And then, if I'm being really frank, I was like, ‘Ugh, somebody might fuck it up,’ and I would hate to see it done wrong.
That is basically my attitude for when it’s time to create a playlist for a backyard BBQ.
Can’t trust anyone else to have the correct balance of Tupac, Bruce Springsteen, Fleetwood Mac and Bieber.
Stanton taking the reins is the primary reason I shall watch Toy Story 5 in theatres and happily spend $70 at the theatre concession selling items with a juicy 6x-7x mark-up.
In addition to his previous work, Stanton’s street cred includes the fact that he was present at arguably the most lucrative business lunch in Hollywood history.
A single meal produced ideas that led to 6 films and $6 billion in lifetime box office.
Stanton memorialized the lunch in a 2008 teaser trailer for Wall-E:
In the summer of 1994, there was a lunch.
Me, John Lasseter, Pete Docter, the late Joe Ranft [who passed away in 1996] all sat down [at the Hidden City Cafe in Point Richmond, California near Pixar’s head office].
Toy Story was almost complete and we thought ‘well jeez, if we’re going to make another movie, we better get started now’. So at that lunch, we knocked around a bunch of ideas that eventually became A Bug’s Life, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo.
The last one we talked about that day was the story of a robot named Wall-E.
The four attendees of that lunch became known as Pixar’s “Brain Trust” and were the creative engine behind Hollywood’s preeminent computer animation hit machine.
I break down how Steve Jobs built Pixar around the Brain Trust and worked hand-in-glove with them to rip off one of Hollywood's most successful film-making runs ever...you can read it here (or smash that blue button):
