Toy Story 5: NZ filmmaker Jess Choi Smyth to produce new Pixar film

Toy Story 5 is set to be released in June 2026.

Kiwi scores huge film role in Pixar franchise, revealed to be a toys vs tech tale with Buzz and Woody set to reunite.

The toys are back, and a New Zealand filmmaker has signed on for the next instalment.

“I could live this day a thousand times over. I’m officially producing Toy Story 5 with these two legends. Heart is full, thanks for the joyful welcome,” Jess Choi Smyth confirmed on Instagram.

The filmmaker is a producer at famed animation studio Pixar — she’s credited in the senior creative team for smash-hit Inside Out 2 — a subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios headquartered in California.

Choi Smyth studied at University of Southern California’s Business of Cinematic Arts Programme after growing up in New Zealand. Prior to that the Kiwi worked for Netflix, and had stints at DreamWorks Animation and DisneyToons.

Her Hollywood credits include visual effects roles on Cats, Velvet Buzzsaw and The Nun, as well as Thor: Ragnarok, directed by fellow Kiwi Taika Waititi, and the Oscar-winning James Cameron blockbuster Avatar: The Way of Water.

Beyond Choi Smyth’s announcement, other details of Toy Story 5, which was announced in February, have been confirmed.

Andrew Stanton will direct, and he revealed some details of the plot at Disney fan event D23 this week.

“In Toy Story 5 the toys’ jobs get exponentially harder, when our toy crew goes head to head with what our kids are obsessed with today: electronics,” he told the audience, in a video posted to Variety’s account on X.

The new instalment is expected to reunite Woody and Buzz Lightyear.

During an appearance on The Tonight Show in November, Tim Allen confirmed he and Tom Hanks — who voiced the toys — had been contacted.

The sequel was confirmed last year by Disney CEO Bob Iger, and it follows four hugely popular films in the series, which launched in 1995 with the revolutionary Toy Story.

The critically acclaimed Toy Story 4 was a box-office hit that broke records for an animated film.

It featured Hollywood heavyweights Joan Cusack, Keanu Reeves, Christina Hendricks and Jordan Peele joining Hanks and Allen. The franchise has also counted Wallace Shawn, Kristen Schaal and Kelsey Grammer among its voice actors.

The films are about “loyalty, belonging and friendship”, Stanton told the audience at D3. “In all of the Toy Story films, the job of the toys has been to be there for their kids”.

After five years — and a Lightyear spin-off — Toy Story 5 is set to be released in June 2026; what will Woody and Buzz have to face this time?