Apple Watch added a 'Toy Story' face in 2017
One of the world's biggest entertainment giants has put together a teaser trailer for the 2026 film Toy Story 5 through reuse Apple Watch animations from 2017.
The animated Apple Watch faces debuted about two years before the release of the 2019 version. Toy Story 4The new animated trailer for the fifth installment opens with a space alien being lifted up by a steel claw, followed by a blue background with the logo of the upcoming film featuring Woody, Buzz and Jessie in the background.
Woody runs to the foreground to wave, Jessie follows with a big wink, and Buzz runs off stage left to reappear in the foreground right to greet the viewer. These animations used were originally Pixar assets created for watchOS 4.
Dylan McDonald, owner of SunApps, showed off the reuse of animation assets in a post on X.com, and then posted the Apple Watch faces. He noted that the animations had their original black backgrounds removed, allowing the characters to appear against a blue background.
McDonald indicated in his tweet that an Apple intern working on the Maps app, initially discover the reuse of the animation assets. Commenters' reaction to both posts was amusement, with speculation that the actual future film probably isn't far enough along to have new animation available.
Only two bits of animation in the trailer aren’t reused from the Apple Watch animations, but instead are repurposed from other sources. The alien being pulled up by a toy claw has been seen before, as has the short animation of Buzz running out of frame.
Toy Story 5 is scheduled to debut in the U.S. on June 19, 2026, and will be written and directed by Andrew Stanton. Stanton helped write the first four episodes Toy Story films, as well as the Monsters, Inc. series of films.
Stanton co-wrote and directed the 2003 Pixar hit Finding Nemo and the sequel Finding DoryHe also co-wrote and directed the 2008 Pixar animated sci-fi romance Wall-Ealong with the less successful live-action Disney film John Carter of Mars.