Dominic Smithers
When Pixar announced its new Buzz Lightyear movie, most people had one question: where is Tim Allen?
The actor voiced the iconic character in each of the four Toy Story movies, but Chris Evans was the one who was selected to voice Buzz in the prequel.
Lightyear, which landed earlier this month, follows the space ranger's intergalactic life before he met Woody and Andy meaning, technically, he's a different character to Allen's Buzz. You can watch the trailer below:
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While he's kept fairly quiet about the flick up until now, Allen has finally revealed what he thinks about it. And let's just say, it's not exactly a sparkling review.
Speaking to Extra, the 69-year-old said he originally thought it would be a live-action film with 'real humans, not an animated thing', and he didn't really get the idea at all.
"I've stayed out of this," he told the site. "We talked about this many years ago… but the brass that did the first four movies is not this. It's a whole new team that really had nothing to do with the first movies."
Allen went on: "There's really no Toy Story Buzz without Woody. I'm not sure what the idea—I'm a plot guy. It would seem to be a big adventure story, and as I see, it's not a big adventure story.
"It's a wonderful story, it just doesn't seem to have any connection to the toy. It has no relationship to Buzz."
And it's not just Allen who hasn't really warmed to the new movie.
Last week, it was revealed that Lightyear 's opening weekend was pretty damn disappointing, with the film failing to dislodge Jurassic World: Dominion from the top spot at cinemas.
The flick took in around $50.5 million in the US, but according to Insider, Disney bosses were predicting it would take a haul closer to $70 million.
While Lightyear was not expected to reach audience levels on par with the likes of Toy Story, a lower-than-predicted haul at the box office is a disappointing start.
As opening weekends go for Pixar films it's down there with the likes of Ratatouille, The Good Dinosaur and Onward.
However, there is still some optimism that Lightyear could go on a good run while in cinemas despite a less than stellar opening.
There are plenty of reasons why a movie doesn't take in quite as much as expected at the box office, and that might help explain why Lightyear performed below expectations.
The movie has opened in a crowded field, shortly after Top Gun: Maverick and Jurassic World: Dominion, which has likely meant audiences were in other screenings on Father's Day weekend.
Those films took $44 million and $58 million respectively on Lightyear's opening weekend, sandwiching the Pixar movie between strongly performing blockbusters.
Bearing that in mind, it's entirely possible that audiences who watched something else last weekend will flock in to see it in the coming weeks, making it a movie with a modest opening but strong legs.
That's what happened to Coco, which opened at $50.8 million in the US, but went on to take $210 million in the American market and $807 million worldwide.
So it's not all doom and gloom, right?
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