4. The Circle And The Plot

Taking its name from Circle 7 Drive where the building was based, the new production facility began to gear up.

''We were never fooled that Circle 7 wasn't the most expensive bargaining chip ever created,'' Stanton has said.

''But we also knew that, bargaining chip or not, they'd go through with it. They weren't going to blink.''

By the end of 2004, Circle 7 had hired an estimated 170 artists, writers, executives, and directors — and it was clear that Disney was pouring millions into the venture.

Toy Story 3 was first on the slate to be directed by Lion King 1½'s Bradley Raymond. (As feared, follow-ups to Monsters, Inc and Finding Nemo were also in development.)

Word was that Tim Allen would likely return to voice spaceman Buzz Lightyear, thanks to his ongoing relationship with Disney (which produced Home Improvement and had handed him a successful franchise with the Santa Clause films). Tom Hanks, however, was less set. The scuttlebutt at Circle 7 was that Disney would pitch Hanks a contract for both a third and fourth installment, for a huge payout.

Jim Herzfeld, who had worked on Meet The Parents and Meet The Fockers, was hired to write a script for the new film.

''I should have had my agent look into it more,'' the writer told Entertainment Weekly. ''There'd been a pot of bile just simmering on the stove. The crew would say, 'we were just pawns, used to scare Pixar to the negotiation table.' It was essentially Michael Eisner putting a gun to the head of Pixar's children.''

Still, he handed in a draft at the end of 2005 that saw the greenlight flash.

And his plot? Buzz Lightyear starts to malfunction, causing his speech to flare up and one of his hands to pop off. The resulting pointy end accidentally scratches Andy.

Believing that they can get him fixed so Andy will accept him again, the toy room gang packs up an unwilling Buzz and has him shipped back to the company that produced him in Taiwan.

Unbeknownst to them, however, Buzz has actually been recalled and won’t ever come back if he reaches the factory. When Woody and co learn this, they have themselves shipped via a faster service to see if they can save their screwy space-buddy.

Meanwhile, Buzz begins to bond with the other recalled toys who are joining him en route, including a night time doll designed for children to snuggle with whose heating element catches fire and a tall action figure doll whose legs don’t work properly and who has a massive chip on her shoulder (no, not literally).

Can the guys (and gals - don’t forget Bo Peep, Jessie and Mrs Potato Head) save their friend in time before he gets melted down or thrown in a landfill?

We’ll never know, because that story will never see the light of day, at least not on screen.

Why? Turns out that Eisner wasn’t long for the Disney world. He left in 2005 and just three months later, new Disney chief Robert Iger essentially buried his predecessor's pet project, announcing that as part of the Disney-Pixar merger, two of Pixar's chief creative architects, Lasseter and Ed Catmull, would now be running all of Disney animation.

Their first major move was to pull the plug on all of Circle 7's work — including preproduction on Toy Story 3.

The end of the story, surely? But no…

Next: Back In The Fold