‘Toy Story 4’ Release Date Confirmed for 2019!!!

After a number of stops and starts, it appears Disney and Pixar are holding fast to a 2019 release date for Toy Story 4. The sequel was first announced back in 2014, with John Lasseter directing and Rashida Jones and Will McCormack writing the screenplay based on an original story from Lasseter and Pixar mainstays Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter, and Lee Unkrich—the creators of the Toy Story franchise in the first place. At that time, Disney staked out a June 2017 release date for the project, and while fans were skeptical, this was the studio that completely reworked Toy Story 2 in record time and gave us one of the most emotional sequels ever with Toy Story 3. If anyone could make a great fourth film in a series, it was Pixar.

But there were rocky roads ahead. In October 2015, Toy Story 4 was pushed back to 2018 as work was still being done on the script. Then a year later, the film was pushed back yet another year as Incredibles 2’s development was going much more smoothly so the two swapped release dates. Then in July 2017, Lasseter stepped down from the director’s chair, promoting co-director Josh Cooley to director and setting Coco co-director Jonas Rivera as the film’s new co-director.

And then, amid reports of sexual harassment from Lasseter, it was revealed that original writers Jones and McCormack had withdrawn from the project some time earlier, with Jones stating that Pixar felt like “a culture where women and people of color do not have an equal voice.”

So that brings us up to date, with Stephany Folsom (Thor: Ragnarok) subsequently coming onboard to pen the screenplay. Now it appears that things are going much more smoothly, as Cooley confirmed on Twitter that the Toy Story 4 release date will indeed be June 21, 2019. About a year and a half out, it appears the team is confident in their ability to hit that date, and so fans can now hopefully look forward to seeing what this sequel’s all about next year.