As Toy Story 5 shatters box office records with an impressive $312 million opening weekend, Tom Hanks is turning his gaze to the future of the beloved franchise.
While the two-time Oscar winner acknowledges that Toy Story is a massive corporate venture, he has made it clear that he won’t return for a potential Toy Story 6 unless the storyline feels genuinely “good, new, and fresh.”
What’s particularly concerning for Hanks is the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence. He expressed concern that Disney might not even need his consent to keep Sheriff Woody alive through new technology.
“Time is undefeated,” he remarked to Variety. “The question would be whether or not we could cobble together some version of me. Every word we’ve ever recorded for Toy Story is floating around somewhere in digital form, so they could potentially piece together anything they wanted.”
Hanks also revealed that his long-time co-star, Tim Allen, who voices Buzz Lightyear, shares these same concerns.
Both actors described the idea of AI recreating performances in place of living actors as a “scary thought.”
For Hanks, this isn’t a new issue. He recalls becoming aware of digital cloning more than 20 years ago during the making of Robert Zemeckis’ The Polar Express.
He reflected, “The first time we did a movie that had a huge amount of our own data locked in a computer, literally what we looked like, was The Polar Express. We saw this coming… the ability to transform zeros and ones into a face and a character has only grown exponentially since then.”
The rise of AI raises important questions that came to the forefront during the recent Hollywood strikes. Hanks’ comments underscore the fears that many A-list talents have: the potential for an actor’s likeness to live on long after they’re gone.
He mentioned that modern AI can easily recreate an actor at any stage of their life, which poses complex challenges. “I could be hit by a bus tomorrow, and that’s it, but performances can go on and on and on,” Hanks cautioned.
“There’ll be nothing to tell you that it’s not me and me alone. That’s certainly an artistic challenge, but it’s also a legal one.” As Toy Story 5 continues to entertain audiences around the globe, the industry faces a pressing dilemma: Will the beloved animated characters of the future be infused with genuine human spirit, or will they be stitched together from data stored in a studio vault?