Pixar exec Pete Docter says Lightyear "asked too much of the audience"
Pete Docter offers some patronizing words about Lightyear, Pixar's latest flop
Pixar’s chief creative officer Pete Docter has taken some time to reflect on the dismal reception to the company’s most recent Toy Story-based production, Lightyear. After a bit of soul-searching, Docter has summed up the film’s problems as a matter of not playing into the feeble expectations of the audience.
“We’ve done a lot of soul-searching about that because we all love the movie. We love the characters and the premise,” Docter tells The Wrap. “I think probably what we’ve ended on in terms of what went wrong is that we asked too much of the audience. When they hear Buzz, they’re like, great, where’s Mr. Potato Head and Woody and Rex? And then we drop them into this science fiction film that they’re like, What? Even if they’ve read the material in press, it was just a little too distant, both in concept, and I think in the way that characters were drawn, that they were portrayed. It was much more of a science fiction.”
With some of the newer Pixar projects doing directly to streaming, it’s harder to simply equate success with box office numbers. Lightyear was the first Pixar film to hit theaters since 2020's Onward, which also tanked in comparison to previous outings. However, when looking at Toy Story 4, the discrepancy is clear, with Lightyear earning $226 million worldwide compared to Toy Story 4's whopping $1 billion. From a critical perspective, Lightyear hit lows not seen since 2017's Car 3, resting at a low-for-Pixar 74% on Rotten Tomatoes.
