Toy Story is older and it's back

Toy Story was the most profitable film of 1995, and it established Pixar as a creative force in movie-making. The 1999 sequel was equally successful. Toy Story 2 was the year's biggest box-office hit, and its computer-generated animation became the industry standard.

Although Toy Story 3 is in 3-D, the technology is low-key compared to the dramatic images in the mega-hit Avatar. "We use 3-D with a very light touch," Darla Anderson, the film's producer, told the BBC. "We didn't want to overdo the 3-D and risk distracting from these characters that people know and love."

Tom Hanks and Tim Allen return as the voices of Woody and Buzz, but the cowboy and space ranger are joined by lots of new toys. "One of the fun things is that we got to not only invent new toys that have never existed on the planet before, but also put in pre-existing toys that we all remember from our own childhoods," Anderson said.

Aside from the 3-D technology and the futuristic playthings, it is the nature of the story that makes Toy Story 3 different. The film is about growing up. As Andy prepares to leave home, the toys fear that they will either end in a box, or worse still, in the dustbin.

With more than 300 characters, Toy Story 3 is a huge marketing opportunity for Pixar's parent company, Walt Disney. It expects to sell $2.5 billion in merchandise, and the film could produce the company's biggest profit to date. Toy Story 3 opens in Europe on 19 July.