Lee Unkrich Reveals Batch of Rejected ‘Toy Story’ Titles, Original Still Best

By  · Published on August 24th, 2011

Normally, my capacity for interest in “might have been” cinematic trivia is limited to dreaming about the original, darker incarnation of Pretty Woman (just me?), but on certain occasions, other bits of fun knowledge catch my attention. Case in point – last night’s Twitter dump by Lee Unkrich (director of Toy Story 3, co-director of Toy Story 2, and editor of Toy Story) of “also-ran” titles for Pixar’s most beloved franchise.

Pixar fans and movie buffs have long known that Toy Story was never meant to be the project’s official title, it was simply used as a working title for the film before Pixar chose something more permanent. The search for an official title led the filmmakers to ask all of Pixar to submit ideas, leading to over 200 possible titles. Yet, none of those titles seemed as appropriate as the deceptively simple Toy Story. Unkrich took to his Twitter last night to share some of those rejected titles, and even this small batch shows the spectrum the submissions ran, from the funny (Toyz in the Hood) to the simple (The New Toy) to the groan-worthy (Rex’s First Movie) to my favorite (Bring Me The Arm of Buzz Lightyear).

You can check out the full list of titles that Unkrich revealed after the break.

Unkrich also shared that the Toy Story name almost carried over to A Bug’s Life, as the studio once considered titling the film Bug’s Story. But the filmmaker admitted that they shied away from that plan, knowing that they’d “have to forever use that naming scheme.” Good call on that one, Pixar.

Big thanks to Ain’t It Cool News and /Film for getting this stuff put together, and of course an even bigger thanks to Unkrich for sharing such fun bits for all the rabid Pixar fans out there.

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