Tom Hanks will return as Woody in Top Stories 5, which set a series record with a worldwide opening gross of $312 million. Given the franchise’s enduring popularity over 31 years, people are already wondering if a “Toy Story 6” is inevitable. But will the two-time Oscar winner Hanks return as Woody for the sixth film?
“If I were to do another ‘Toy Story,’ it would be worth it,” Hanks told Entertainment Weekly. “It’s better to be great. Instead of dragging it out just because you like the title, it’s better to consider some theme. I mean, this is definitely a huge corporate business. I’m not trying to downplay that. But unless it’s good and new and fresh, there’s no reason to do it at all.”
But Hanks also knows that if Disney wants to make Toy Story 6, he won’t even need to return as Woody. Because the studio has access to the vast amount of dialogue recorded by Hanks as Woody over the past 31 years, the AI can easily string words together to create new sentences to bring Woody back to Toy Story 6 without Hanks’ physical participation.
“Time is undefeated,” Hanks said. “The question is, can we combine versions of ourselves? Every word we’ve ever recorded in ‘Toy Story’ is stored somewhere on digital media, so they can combine whatever they want.”
Both Hanks and his longtime co-star Tim Allen (Buzz Lightyear) agreed that it was a “horrible idea.” In a 2023 interview with The Adam Buxton Podcast, Hanks talked about how AI and deepfake technology could mean death won’t be the end of an actor’s career.
“The first movie that literally showed us on film, where so much of our own data is locked up in computers, was a movie called ‘The Polar Express,'” Hanks said, referring to Robert Zemeckis’ 2004 Christmas movie. “We saw this coming, we saw this ability to take the zeros and ones from inside the computer and turn them into faces and text. Since then, this ability has grown a billion times and we’re seeing it everywhere.”
Hanks said that AI and deepfake technology has allowed him to pitch multiple movies in which he appears as a 32-year-old, adding, “With AI and deepfake technology, anyone can now recreate themselves at any age. You might get run over and that’s it, but the performance could go on and on. Without an understanding of AI and deepfakes, there’s no way to say it’s not just me and me. And it’s certainly an artistic challenge, but it’s also a legal challenge.”
“Toy Story 5” is now showing in theaters nationwide.
