You didn't forget Keanu Reeves was going to be in Toy Story 4, did you? Yes, right after fighting for his life in John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum in May, Reeves is going to shrink down for his mighty role as new motorcycle daredevil character Duke Caboom in Pixar's 2019 Toy Story movie.
Disney has been gathering the new Toy Story 4 stars to show off their special character posters, so here's Keanu Reeves unveiling "the man, the myth, the legend -- Duke Caboom!"
YES! That's Ally Maki with him, and she voices Officer Giggle McDimples in Toy Story 4. She reposted Disney's Duke Caboom video with her own very relatable fangirl gushing over Keanu Reeves, adding that "he is so hilarious in this movie":
Only watched Speed 837 times as a kid in preparation for this moment. The man the myth the legend Keanu Reeves. He is so hilarious in this movie.
Keanu Reeves may not be known for comedy post-Bill & Ted, but just go find a copy of I Love You To Death and enjoy it because his comic timing is perfect. He really should be in more comedies, and I'm looking forward to what he does with Duke Caboom.
Duke Caboom was actually first introduced as an Easter egg in Incredibles 2, although fans didn't know that toy in the background would be showing up in Toy Story 4 -- and voiced by none other than Keanu Reeves.
Tim Allen (Buzz Lightyear) is the one who first told fans Keanu Reeves would be playing a role in Toy Story 4:
Keanu Reeves has got a great part. Actually, a little inside story, even [Reeves] said --- gentle, wonderful guy that he is --- 'This sounds too much like Buzz Lightyear.' And his character does have an edge to that. And the guy said, 'So we calmed him down a little bit,' and they reminded me his toy is only that big.
Keanu Reeves later explained he got a call out of the blue "from the lovely people at Pixar" and they pitched the character to him. They let him "kind of riff on it," he said, and it was a lot of fun.
Keanu Reeves later added to EW that he figured Duke should love what he does, since he's the greatest stuntman in Canada, so he wanted Duke to constantly be doing poses on his bike while he was talking. A motorcycle enthusiast himself, Reeves teased more of his character's story in the movie:
Duke becomes an important part of trying to save Woody and Bo’s mission. They take his skills as a motorcycle daredevil and ask him to confront his fear of failure in order to help the greater good.
Speaking of failure, Keanu Reeves said he wanted Duke to be an extrovert, but also have a bit of a sad backstory. (That appears to be going around in the Toy Story world.) Every kid has their toy, and apparently Duke let his kid down when he couldn't do what a commercial said he could do:
So he’s a wounded person! He’s needing to have some, I don’t know, catharsis. Some feeling. I wanted him to have a real sensitivity and a soft heart.… I also saw him as a character that has a really wide dramatic bandwidth in the sense of being so big. ‘Kaboom! Kapow! Let’s go!’ But who can also then share his wounds, like, ‘You have a kid? I had a kid. I let him down!’ And he can get quiet. So it was really a lot to play with on the playground.
Director Josh Cooley told EW Keanu Reeves added a tremendous amount of enthusiasm and ideas for the character:
Once Keanu came to the table, he was just asking all of these great questions about the character… and it made us realize that we weren’t digging deep enough for this character and there’s a real opportunity to have him support Woody’s story in a much bigger way.
I'm looking forward to seeing more from Toy Story 4, beyond the already intriguing and funny clips. It should be quite an emotional ride, based on previous teases from both Tim Allen and Tom Hanks (Woody). Toy Story 4 opens in theaters on June 21 as one of the many movies to keep track of through our 2019 movie release date schedule.
