Tom Hanks Watched Toy Story 3 Before Reading The Script

Pixar didn't send Tom Hanks a screenplay for Toy Story 3, they showed him the entire movie.

Hanks reveals to Empire Magazine that he sat in a theater with Tim Allen and John Ratzenberger and watched an "a complete story reel of the entire movie." The reel was comprised of moving storyboards, voices recorded by Pixar animators with some temp music and sound effects." His reaction was "'This is great, let's get to work!'" And work he has. Hanks has already had three complete recording sessions for the film, and will probably have one more.

The initial story reel for a Pixar movie is usually much different (plot-wise) than the final product. Toy Story 3 screenwriter Michael Arndt explained to Variety last year that "Writing a script at Pixar is like trying to build a house, and every six weeks somebody comes and throws a hand grenade into it. You've got to build it really strong to survive this continual assault every six weeks. And if it's weak, if it's flimsy, it's just going to get blown apart."

I've always wished that Pixar would include their early story reels as extras on their DVDs. With the extra space on Blu-ray releases, it's more possible now than ever. It would be very interesting to watch a version of a film that never was, like the infamous original Toy Story cut which almost resulted in the death of Pixar. But now that the company is Disney-owned, there are branding issues to take into consideration. So, as cool as it would be I'm sure we'll never see one of these early story reels.