Tim Allen has criticised the ‘Toy Story’ spin-off ‘Lightyear’ after he was replaced by Chris Evans.

Tim Allen has criticised the ‘Toy Story’ spin-off ‘Lightyear’ after he was replaced by Chris Evans

Tim Allen has criticised the ‘Toy Story’ spin-off ‘Lightyear’ after he was replaced by Chris Evans

The 69-year-old actor spoke out after the follow-up film flopped on its opening weekend, with Allen hitting out at its lack of continuity to the ‘Toy Story’ franchise and his exclusion from the project by a “new team”.

He told Extra on Wednesday (30.06.22): “It’s a wonderful story, it just doesn’t seem to have any connection to the toy. It has no relationship to Buzz.

“We talked about this many years ago... but the (top) 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, also famed for playing Tim ‘The Toolman’ Taylor on ABC sitcom ‘Home Improvement’ from 1991 to 1999, voiced character Buzz Lightyear alongside Tom Hanks, 65, who voiced cowboy Woody in the 1995 Pixar film ‘Toy Story’.

It made $373 million (£306 million) at the box office, with Allen reprising his voice role in several sequel films and animated shorts, as well as voicing space-obsessed toy Buzz in 2019’s ‘Toy Story 4’.

‘Lightyear’ earned only $51.7 million (£42.4 million) in North America when it opened, and was pulled from 14 countries for including a gay kissing scene Disney refused to censor.

Legions of ‘Toy Story’ fans have speculated if Allen was replaced by Chris Evans, 41, in the project after Allen’s support of the Republican party and conservatism.

He has been quoted as saying he “liked that Donald Trump p***** people off” and added about attending Trump’s inauguration in 2017: “You get beat up if you don't believe what everybody believes. This is like Thirties Germany.”

Allen also told Extra on Wednesday he did not originally think the ‘Lightyear’ would be animated and would be live-action.

He said: “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.”

Allen had his sitcom ‘Last Man Standing’ cancelled by network ABC in 2017 despite it being one of the most popular shows at the time, with speculation it was due to his refusal to backtrack on his political statements.

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