Toy Story 2 is a 1999 American computer-animated film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures.[5] The second installment in the Toy Story franchise and the sequel to Toy Story (1995), the film was directed by John Lasseter, co-directed by Ash Brannon and Lee Unkrich, from a screenplay written by Andrew Stanton, Rita Hasio, Doug Chamberlin, and Chris Webb from a story by Lasseter, Stanton, Brannon, and Pete Docter. In the film, Woody is stolen by a toy collector, prompting Buzz Lightyear and his friends to rescue him, but Woody is then tempted by the idea of immortality in a museum. Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Don Rickles, Wallace Shawn, John Ratzenberger, Jim Varney, Annie Potts, R. Lee Ermey, John Morris, and Laurie Metcalf reprise their roles from the first film and are joined by Joan Cusack, Kelsey Grammer, Estelle Harris, Wayne Knight, and Jodi Benson, who play the new characters introduced in this film.
Disney initially envisioned Toy Story 2 as a direct-to-video sequel. The film began production in a building separated from Pixar, on a small scale, as most of the main Pixar staff were busy working on A Bug's Life (1998). When story reels proved promising, Disney upgraded the film to a theatrical release, but Pixar was unhappy with the film's quality. Lasseter and the story team redeveloped the entire plot in one weekend. Although most Pixar features take years to develop, the established release date could not be moved and the production schedule for Toy Story 2 was compressed into nine months.[6][7]