“Toy Story 4” Release Date Confirmed

Josh Cooley, director of the upcoming Disney/Pixar film Toy Story 4, has confirmed the movie’s June 21, 2019 release date.

He made this announcement on his Twitter account, posting a photo of a wall where the number “4” had been made out of post-it notes, in the characteristic Toy Story font. He added the date along with the picture.

This is really just a formality, as that date had already been scheduled for the movie’s release. However, this is good news for fans, as it indicates that the movie is apparently still on track without any major problems.

This will be the first feature-length film directed by Cooley, who has worked on various Pixar projects since storyboarding for The Incredibles back in 2004. He has directed two of the company’s short films, George & A.J. (a tie-in to Up) and Riley’s First Date? (a tie-in to Inside Out).

Toy Story was the company’s first feature-length project and the first feature-length all-CGI movie ever. It and its two sequels remain some of Pixar’s most successful films, with nearly unanimous approval from critics and audiences. As such, the fourth film has a lot to live up to, especially since the previous entries in the franchise form such a perfect trilogy; some fans are leery of the idea of a fourth movie at all, arguing that the third constituted an ideal (and appropriately poignant) ending.

In the setting of this series, inanimate objects come to life when no humans are around to see, and focuses on the toys belonging to a boy named Andy. The main characters are a pull-string cowboy doll named Woody (Tom Hanks) and Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), an action figure based on a sci-fi show. The first movie was a buddy comedy between them, while the next two addressed the question of how the toys deal with Andy growing up and losing interest in them.

In the third film, we learn that one minor but memorable character, the porcelain doll Bo Peep (Annie Potts) was sold at a yard sale sometime after Toy Story 2—a painful loss for Woody, since she was his girlfriend. The fourth movie is set to address this hanging plot thread, with the toys learning about her whereabouts and trying to get her back.