Toy Story 5 is headed to cinemas later this month, and this time the toys are not being chased by another child or collector but by a frog-like tablet called Lilypad. Woody, Buzz Lightyear and Jessie are back in the fifth instalment, with the new threat built around the very device many children now keep closest.
The timing is what is pushing the film back into the spotlight now. As families decide what to watch next, the franchise is leaning directly into the debate over children and screens, turning a major animated release into a story about attention, distraction and how quickly younger viewers move on when a phone is in their hands. Tom Hanks, who voices Woody, said the issue of children's addiction to screens strikes a kind of terror in the heart, and added that the cast all recognised the look of children who glance down at a phone, up again, then back down again.
That is also what gives the film its edge. The toys in this story are still fighting for a child's attention, but the enemy is no longer just another toy or a human villain. It is technology itself, and the film makes that point without much disguise. Greta Lee joins the cast as Lilypad, while Joan Cusack returns as Jessie and Tim Allen is back as Buzz Lightyear, with Taylor Swift also contributing a new song, I Knew It, I Knew You, to the soundtrack.
Allen said the storyline landed because he had recently taken his teenage daughter to the cinema and she struggled to concentrate for the whole film. He said she was not wrong to dismiss it early, because she had already got the gist of what was going to happen. Children, he said, are so used to seven-second movies on Instagram and to a beginning, middle and end arc in seven seconds that sitting through a two-hour movie can feel unfamiliar. For him, that makes the new film less like a simple sequel and more like a warning about how much patience modern screens have trained away.
The franchise has always given its toys a villain to outrun, from Lotso to Sid, Al and Gabby Gabby. This time the threat is different, and that is exactly why Toy Story 5 is drawing attention before it opens later this month. The exact release date has not been confirmed in the material available, but the film is already shaping up as one of Pixar's sharpest reflections of the age that is releasing it.
