Disney officially unveiled plans Friday for a fifth Toy Story film at this year’s D23 expo in Anaheim, California. Company executives dazzled the crowd with a quick teaser video–but as some keen observers are pointing out, we may have seen it before.
Software developer Dylan McDonald, known to frequently comment on Apple on X, posted a video Saturday showing a side-by-side comparison of the teaser video with each of the animations from the ‘Toy Story’ Apple Watch faces–showing almost an exact match for every one.
McDonald noted that the characters appeared to be edited off a black background. Other observers noted the low-quality renders, inconsistent lighting and awkward silence. For many die-hard Disney fans, using off-the-shelf renders for what should be a major announcement could be more evidence of a downward trend for the Mouse House–many are frustrated at executives for banking too much on existing intellectual property by creating too many sequels and converting classic theme park attractions to adaptations of films (see here, here and here).
Apple VP of technology Kevin Lynch introduced the ‘Toy Story’ watch face at WWDC 2017 as part of watchOS 4 alongside the Siri and Kaleidoscope watch faces. Some of the update’s other marquee features included the ability to sync with workout equipment through GymKit and a redesigned Music app.
Of course, Toy Story (and parent company Pixar) have shared DNA. After Steve Jobs resigned from Apple in 1985, he funded Pixar’s spinoff for independence from George Lucas’ company Lucasfilm. He served as the CEO of Pixar while also running his latest computing startup, NeXT, and is credited as the executive producer of the original Toy Story film.
The film brought Pixar critical acclaim and became the second-highest-grossing film of 1995. Amid this success, however, Disney and Pixar had a difficult relationship, mostly between the big personalities of Jobs and Disney’s then-CEO Michael Eisner.
Eisner stepped down and handed duties over to Bob Iger, who realized the importance of Toy Story and other Pixar properties to Disney’s identity after seeing the film’s characters in the Disney theme parks. He made peace with Jobs and ended up closing the deal to purchase Pixar for $7.4 billion in 2006.
Jobs and Iger maintained a close relationship; in fact, Iger once wrote that if Jobs were still alive, Disney and Apple would likely have merged. Amid declining stock prices, many business commentators suggest that could be on the table again.
For a bit of irony, Disney executives announced that Toy Story 5 centers around the toys competing for their owners’ attention against technology. The film is scheduled for release in summer 2026.
