Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack and Greta Lee appeared Thursday at a hot, humid Toy Story 5 launch event in central London, giving Pixar’s next chapter a public push before the film reaches theaters on June 19. The cast turned up with the kind of easy familiarity that comes from a franchise stretched across decades, but the new movie is aimed squarely at a modern problem: what happens when an 8-year-old gets her first device and starts spending too much time on it.
Hanks, who plays Woody, said the film contains one of the most heartbreaking scenes he has seen in any of the Toy Story movies, describing a moment in which a little girl is hurt by what other people are texting about her. He said the story is trying to show children that play, friends and real-world engagement can be more satisfying than life on a screen. “These movies, they end up speaking to and puts in words and stuff that everybody is thinking anyway,” he said, adding that the emotional turns often leave him happy to return and annoyed that the filmmakers keep making him do it.
That is the weight Pixar is putting on Toy Story 5, which is being directed by Andrew Stanton. The movie’s premise, centered on Bonnie’s first device and the pull of screen time, puts the studio’s most recognizable toys into direct contact with a problem that feels current rather than nostalgic. Hanks said the story captures a feeling many people recognize, and he tied the lesson back to the toys themselves by saying you cannot make people play again, but you can show them that time with toys, friends and life can be more rewarding than being on a device.
Allen, who voices Buzz Lightyear, said the new film digs deeper into the character. “There’s a lot of Buzz in this, a lot of different Buzzes,” he said, adding that the filmmakers have opened up what Buzz is and what makes him special. He said Disney and Pixar were taking on tech in Toy Story 5, describing the film as a pointed look at their own industry and the forces shaping it. “I think the word you’re looking for is Space Ranger,” Allen said, making clear that the movie is not simply about gadgets, but about how the toys and their world are changing around them.
The London event also reflected the franchise’s broad reach. Alongside the main media setup, organizers held a separate line for kid interviewers, a small detail that fit a launch built around a family property still trying to speak to children even as it tackles the habits shaping their attention. Cusack, who plays Jessie, stood with the rest of the cast as the studio set the stage for a sequel that is less about repeating old adventures than about finding a new source of anxiety for the toys to confront.
That is also what makes the timing matter now. Toy Story has always been about play, friendship and the fear of being left behind, but Toy Story 5 turns that fear into something more immediate: the way a child’s first device can quietly take over the room. For Pixar, the test is whether a story about toys can still land in a moment defined by screens. The answer, judging by what Hanks and Allen said in London, is yes — and the emotional sting is the point.
