There were a number of things about Disney’s Toy Story spinoff, Lightyear, that contributed to its commercial failure – but in the eyes of Pixar’s Chief Creative Officer, Pete Docter, it mostly boiled down to the film’s confusing premise.
He’s not particularly wrong, either – when we think Buzz Lightyear, we don’t necessarily think about his life and times as an astronaut (though admittedly, the Buzz Lightyear of Star Command cartoon from the early 2000’s was kinda fun). Rather, we think of Andy’s toy, and Woody’s best pal.
In Docter’s view, this was the crux of Lightyear’s lukewarm $118 million domestic box office haul. He tells The Wrap:
“We’ve done a lot of soul-searching about that because we all love the movie. We love the characters and the premise. I think probably what we’ve ended on in terms of what went wrong is that we asked too much of the audience. When they hear Buzz, they’re like, great, where’s Mr. Potato Head and Woody and Rex? And then we drop them into this science fiction film that they’re like, What?”
Docter went on to tell the publication that the concept was just too distant even for those who did their due diligence on the film, and that there was a disconnect between the expectation and the reality.
Perhaps the film may have seen more success had it recruited original Buzz Lightyear voice actor Tim Allen for the role rather than Marvel star Chris Evans. Though, even that wouldn’t have even taken away from the confusion Docter outlines, seeing as one plays the toy, and one plays the man. Despite its convoluted concept, we ended up thinking the film was fantastic.
Still, Toy Story diehards can take solace in the fact that Allen recently confirmed that he will be reprising his role as Buzz Lightyear (again, the toy, not the man) in the recently-confirmed Toy Story 5.