While doing publicity with the BBC for his upcoming film, Larry Crowne, Tom Hanks was asked if there would be a Toy Story 4 for his newly born granddaughter to watch. Hanks replied “I think there will be, yeah. Yeah, I think they’re working on it now.”

That probably shouldn’t be all that surprising since Toy Story 3 became only the third film ever to be nominated for Best Picture, and it won Best Animated Film for 2010. Oh, and it made well over $1 billion and went on to become the fifth highest grossing film of all time, so there’s that.

Obviously, if Hanks is correct, there will still be a lot of work between now and the release of a fourth movie in the series. Even if Toy Story 4 is in the earliest stages of development at Pixar, that doesn’t make it a certainty that it will happen. But again, the last film  made over $1 billion.

This is the first mention of a Toy Story 4, so no release date is known. Pixar has a pattern of releasing one movie a year since 2006, sometimes waiting two years between each film. With both Brave and Monsters University already confirmed for 2012 and 2013 respectively, Toy Story 4 wouldn’t hit theaters until after that.

 

[Updated to correct a typo.  Thanks to our reader "moff" for letting us know!