Tom Hanks doesn’t understand decision to replace Tim Allen as Buzz Lightyear

Tom Hanks said he doesn’t understand the decision to replace Tim Allen as Buzz Lightyear.

The Hollywood icon stars in Elvis and has been competing at the box office against the Toy Story spin-off Lightyear – which sees Chris Evans take over from Tim as the voice of the legendary character – and he regrets that he didn’t get the chance to go up against his former co-star.

Tom, who voiced Sheriff Woody in the Toy Story films, told CinemaBlend: “Actually, I wanted to go head-to-head with Tim Allen and then they didn’t let Tim Allen do it. I don’t understand that.”

Despite the competition, he is more concerned about people returning to cinemas following the pandemic and is hoping to see a movie with Tim.

The 65-year-old star said: “Here’s the thing – just as long as people come back to the motion picture theatres. I want to go back to the theatre with a bunch of strangers and leave with something in common.

“That’s what I want to do and, going to see a movie with him (Tim) – I’m looking forward to that.”

Tim has criticised Lightyear due to its lack of continuity from the Toy Story movies and was frustrated to be excluded from the project by a “new team” behind the scenes.

The 69-year-old actor said: “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.”