Tim Allen has to feel kind of good to see that “Lightyear” flopped with Chris
Evans who replaced him.
Last week, we reported on the backlash over Disney replacing Tim Allen,
who originated the role of Buzz Lightyear, with Chris Evans in the new
movie Lightyear. Now, Allen is getting the last laugh, as Lightyear has
flopped at the box office after it came out on Friday.
But first, check out a trailer for Lightyear below.
Though experts had expected Lightyear to make $70 to $85 million
domestically, it only made a measly $51 million across the U.S. and Canada,
according to NBC News. In contrast, Toy Story 4 made $120.9 million in its
opening weekend when it came out in June of 2019.
Variety reported that Lightyear wasn’t even able to beat Jurassic World:
Dominion, which was the top movie of the weekend, making $58.6 million
in North America. The production value of Lightyear was $200 million
before marketing, so it has quite a ways to go before it even breaks even.
This came after Disney replaced Allen, who has been open about his
conservative views in the past, with the “woke” leftwing star Chris Evans in
the role of Buzz Lightyear. The film’s director Angus MacLane had
previously tried to defend this recasting.
“Tim’s version of Buzz is a little goofier and is a little dumber, and so he is
the comic relief,” he said, according to Cinema Blend. “In this film, Buzz is
the action hero. He’s serious and ambitious and funny, but not in a goofy
way that would undercut the drama. Chris Evans has the gravitas and that
movie-star quality that our character needed to separate” him and the
movie from Tim’s version of the toy in Toy Story.”
Perhaps now he’s realized just what a mistake this really was! Lightyear
producer Galyn Susman has also publicly given her thoughts on the
recasting.
“Tim Allen is Buzz Lightyear the toy,” she said during a recent press
conference. “We weren’t making a Toy Story movie. We’re making Buzz
Lightyear’s movie. And so first and foremost, we just needed a different
person playing that Lightyear, separate from the toy.”
Evans Sounds Off On Allen
As for Evans, he made an effort to honor Allen amidst the backlash.
“The reason we’re doing this movie is because Tim Allen made such an
iconic impact,” Evans told USA Today. “Not only would you be a fool to not
take his interpretation because it worked so well, but the truth is this
character is in fact the human version of that toy, so there does need to be
overlap in terms of their cadence and nature.”‘