With just a little over one month to go until its theatrical release, Lightyear director Angus MacLane is revealing the chance for the film to receive a spin-off of its own. The upcoming movie — which will introduce an origin story for Space Ranger superhero Buzz Lightyear — is the latest installment in the mega Toy Story franchise and will serve as a spin-off to the films that focus on the action figure Buzz Lightyear.
While speaking with Screen Rant, MacLane compared Lightyear to Star Wars when it comes to its open-ended nature of the events within the film, while teasing that a spin-off of the movie is completely possible.
To me, I look at it as what I liked about Star Wars is that it always allowed for the expansion of what the world could be. I think that that open endedness is often what’s most exciting, it’s when you start closing those doors and connecting those things that it becomes less compelling. So our focus right now is honestly finishing this movie, but it’s meant to be this like island of a narrative that is very much we don’t start when Buzz is born. It was very much this thing that you’d imagined stuff before and afterwards, I think connecting it is risky, but you know, who knows?
MacLane has already compared the Pixar film to Star Wars before, and it appears as though Lightyear’s overall influence holds the power to inspire a potential spin-off. Additionally, folks are already pining for Woody — arguably the most significant character in the Toy Story film series — to receive a well-deserved solo film of his own.
Don’t miss Lightyear when it arrives in theaters on June 17.