Chris Evans To Replace Tim Allen In New ‘Toy Story’ Spin-Off, ‘Lightyear’

The Toy Story franchise will release its first prequel spin-off movie that tells the fictional in-universe origin story of the character Buzz Lightyear. The movie will be titled Lightyear and will not feature any of the other characters from the Toy Story films. However, Chris Evans will replace Tim Allen as the voice of the iconic space ranger toy. This was one of the many announcements released during Disney’s Investor Day. This will be Pixar Animation Studio’s second prequel film after the release of Monsters University in 2013. Angus MacLane will make his debut as the director for Lightyear after working on every Pixar movie since A Bug’s Life in 1998, while the writers for the movie have not yet been revealed.

Many fans were upset by the news of Evans replacing Allen as the voice of Buzz Lightyear, as he had been voicing the character in all four of the Toy Story movies. The reason for Allen being replaced is likely due to his offensive posts on Twitter in which he seemed to condone child labor, with him even calling a quote by Karl Marx an “honest progressive position.”

Some fans did not see the point of releasing an origin story for Buzz Lightyear as a direct-to-video traditionally animated film titled Buzz Lightyear of Star Command: The Adventure Begins had already been released in 2000. The film was even followed by an animated television series titled Buzz Lightyear of Star Command. Others were excited to see the Toy Story franchise branch off from its main set of films and instead focus on different characters aside from Tom Hanks as Woody.

Lightyear is set be released on June 17, 2022 with Evans now officially voicing the popular title character.