{"id":506848,"date":"2026-07-02T21:37:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T21:37:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/506848\/"},"modified":"2026-07-02T21:37:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T21:37:12","slug":"toy-story-5-gets-an-in-theater-directors-commentary-this-weekend-exclusive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/506848\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Toy Story 5’ Gets an In-Theater Director’s Commentary This Weekend (Exclusive)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Toy Story 5 is one of those movies<\/a> you want to see again and again. Or, maybe, it\u2019s a movie your kids are forcing you to see again and again. Either way, if you\u2019ve already seen it<\/a> and want a new experience, Woody, Buzz, and Jessie have you covered. io9 can exclusively reveal that Toy Story 5 director Andrew Stanton<\/a>\u00a0has teamed up with the app TheaterEars<\/a> to release a special, in-theater director\u2019s commentary for the Disney Pixar hit, and it\u2019ll be available on July 3.<\/p>\n

\u201cToy Story is the franchise that made millions of us fall in love with the movies, so there\u2019s no better film to bring the Director\u2019s Experience into animation for the first time,\u201d Dan Mangru, the CEO of TheaterEars, said in a press release. \u201cSitting in a theater and hearing Andrew Stanton walk through how the film was made, synced right to the screen, is exactly the kind of experience we built this for.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is the third such commentary to come to TheaterEars this year. The first one was by directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller for Project Hail Mary<\/a> (which comes to streaming this week<\/a>), and the other was with Jon Favreau for The Mandalorian and Grogu. Toy Story 5 marks the company\u2019s first animated feature.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery frame of Toy Story 5 holds a decision the audience never sees,\u201d Stanton said. \u201cGetting to talk through those choices while people are watching the movie in a theater, that\u2019s a way of sharing the work I\u2019ve never had before, and I think fans are going to love hearing where these moments came from.\u201d<\/p>\n

So how does it work? Well, it\u2019s pretty simple. You download the TheaterEars app, you go see Toy Story 5, and you open the app. Here\u2019s a fun graphic to further illustrate.<\/p>\n

\"Toy\u00a9 TheaterEars <\/p>\n

Oh, and if you\u2019re like me and the first thing you thought is \u201cWhat if I hit play at the wrong time?\u201d Don\u2019t worry. According to TheaterEars, \u201cthe app listens for the film\u2019s audio to sync the commentary track to the exact moment on screen.\u201d Oh, technology.<\/p>\n

Usually, you have to wait until a film comes home to hear a director\u2019s commentary, so it\u2019s pretty awesome that these are starting to happen when a film is still in theaters. As long as you are discreet with using your phone and keep the commentary at a suitable volume, of course. Let\u2019s be respectable about this.<\/p>\n

Have you tried a TheaterEars director\u2019s commentary yet? Let us know below.<\/p>\n

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel<\/a>, Star Wars<\/a>, and Star Trek<\/a> releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV<\/a>, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Toy Story 5 is one of those movies you want to see again and again. Or, maybe, it\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":506849,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[117930,156,409,111,139,69,252728,63715],"class_list":["post-506848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-andrew-stanton","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-theaterears","tag-toy-story-5"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=506848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506848\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/506849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}