Tom Hanks hints Disney could bring back Woody with AI if he bows out

Well, it looks like the toys aren’t ready to hit the attic just yet. Toy Story 5 has just smashed the franchise’s own box office record, pulling in a silly $312 million worldwide on opening weekend. Evidently, we’re a long way off from saying goodbye to Woody, Buzz, and the rest – assuming, that is, the people who actually voice them are up for the job. But is Tom Hanks himself game for Toy Story 6? That’s a bit trickier.

Tom Hanks: ‘It better be worthwhile’

So, Hanks sat down with Entertainment Weekly to chat about the future of Woody. He didn’t exactly leap at the chance for yet another ride into the toybox, saying:

'If you’re gonna do another Toy Story, it better be worthwhile. It better be great. You better be examining some theme that is not just dragging it out because people like the title. I mean, it is a huge corporate business without a doubt, I’m not gonna discount that. But unless it’s good, new, fresh, there’s no reason to do it at all.'

Not mincing words there. He knows the studio bean counters would happily churn out another dozen sequels, but unless there’s an actual point to Woody’s next adventure, he’s not signing anything.

Woody vs. the Robots

Let’s make this weirder: Hanks knows full well Disney doesn’t technically need him anymore. And he’s not entirely thrilled about it. Now that voice-matching and AI tech has grown so sharp, the actor says his pipes – the voice of Woody – could easily be stitched together out of all the recordings he’s done over the years. That means, if he fancied saying no to Toy Story 6, Disney could, in theory, just let the machines handle it. Hanks put it rather bluntly:

'Time is undefeated. The question would be whether or not we could cobble together some version of me. Every word we have ever recorded in time in Toy Story is on digital media somewhere, so they could put together anything they would want.'

So yes, Woody’s got to face the future – and so does Tom Hanks, apparently.

The Long Shadows of AI

This isn’t just theoretical. Hanks and Tim Allen (Buzz Lightyear himself) went on The Adam Buxton Podcast and called the idea of AI reanimating their voices ‘a scary thought’. Hanks already did a trial run with deepfake tech in the time-hopping film Here, and he’s had this on his mind ever since The Polar Express days.

• First glimpse: All the way back with The Polar Express, Hanks realised his face and voice data were being fed into a computer – and the tech’s only exploded since then.
• The tech leap: He says those original ones and zeros can now twist into a whole character, and AI can 'recreate themselves at any age'.
• The big picture: According to Hanks, 'I could be hit by a bus tomorrow and that’s it, but performances can go on and on and on and on.' Unless you’re a proper tech whizz, most viewers wouldn’t even notice the swap from real to artificial – at least, not yet.

It’s not just an artsy talking point – it’s a legal quagmire, too.