While Toy Story is 30 years old, it almost didn’t happen

The premiere of Toy Story on Nov. 22, 1995 wasn’t just the beginning of a franchise or even Pixar’s reign as a leading animation company. Today, the computer-generated animation pioneered in that first outing with Woody and Buzz is the industry standard. Despite a gross of over $400 million (on an unthinkable $30 million budget), the movie almost didn’t happen.

The film that became Toy Story began as an idea for a Christmas special based on Pixar’s short film Tin Toy. The scope clearly evolved — but as chronicled in the 2005 book DisneyWar, neither Disney nor Pixar, then an independently owned technology company, knew what they wanted to make. Pixar hoped to produce, oddly enough, a family-friendly Disney movie using their technology. Disney wanted something else.

Throughout production, Disney CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg asked for a film that spoke to children and adults, wanting “more edginess” in Woody and Buzz Lightyear (per Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs biography), as well as references that appealed to grown-ups. If that sounds like Shrek, you won’t be surprised to know that Katzenberg went on to found DreamWorks Animation.

Pixar attempted to present their take on that vision during a screening of half of the film on Black Friday in 1993. It went so badly that Disney halted production on the film. According to a 1995 piece from Entertainment Weekly, Disney didn’t think what Pixar had made was very fun. At the time, Disney Animation Studios president Peter Schneider told the team, “Guys, no matter how much you try to fix it, it just isn’t working.”

It turns out making Woody and Buzz angrier, edgier, and more sarcastic wasn’t the recipe for success or fun. With no other options left, Pixar took the script and spent three months trying to fix it. Meanwhile, Schneider was angling to get the movie outright canceled, according to The Pixar Touch: The Making of a Company by David A. Price.

Luckily for Pixar, Disney didn’t listen to Schneider. Three months later, production resumed on Toy Story. The studio made the characters likable, refined its story, and even added subtle adult references like the toys having staff meetings, as if being Andy’s toy was their job (it was).

And now, 30 years later, we are eagerly awaiting the fifth Toy Story movie, due in 2026. Against all odds, Pixar used Toy Story to change the game more than anyone since Walt Disney first debuted Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs back in 1937. And while the animation studio might not have the batting record it once did, it has yet to make a Toy Story movie that’s anything but great. (I don’t count Lightyear, although I will also defend Lightyear.)

We are all better off and far more entertained because of the final cut of Toy Story, which remains one of the best animated films of all time (and maintains its perfect 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes). And it kickstarted a franchise that will likely continue long after we’re all gone. Toy Story has birthed multiple sequels, TV and movie spin-offs, holiday specials, short films, theme park rides, and even an entire Toy Story Land at Walt Disney World. And yet, it all almost never happened because Woody, the old cowboy toy, just wasn’t cool and edgy enough.