And, perhaps more intriguingly, it will be set immediately after Toy Story 3. Which means we'll be reunited with the trilogy's original characters: Woody, Buzz, Jessie, Bullseye, Rex and the rest. Toy Story 3 ended with Andy's remaining toys being donated to Bonnie Anderson, a little girl who lived in the neighbourhood.
However, it's likely that the cast will be boosted by Bonnie's toys, some of whom we met in the last film: the Shakespearean hedgehog Mr Pricklepants, Buttercup the friendly unicorn and old timer Chuckles The Clown.
John Lasseter revelaed the latest in an interview with LA Times. The original Toy Story director and Pixar chief creative officer said: "We only make sequels when we have a story that's as good as or better than the original."
Toy Story fans may have thought they said goodbye to Woody, Buzz and Jessie after Toy Story 3 in 2010 but now Disney has announced that a fourth film is to be made.
Disney said Toy Story 4 is being created by the original Toy Story director John Lasseter alongside Lee Unkrich, the director of Toy Story 3, Pete Docter, the director of Up, and Andrew Stanton, the director of Finding Nemo. The film, which is set to be another blockbuster, will be released on June 16th, 2017.
The screenplay will be written by actress Rashida Jones, who has starred on Parks and Recreation and The Office, and Will McCormack, who previously wrote 2012 romantic comedy Celeste & Jesse Forever alongside Jones. Galyn Susman, who has been producing Toy Story shorts for Pixar, is producing the film too.
"We love these characters so much; they are like family to us," Lasseter said in a statement. "We don’t want to do anything with them unless it lives up to or surpasses what’s gone before.
"Toy Story 3 ended Woody and Buzz’s story with Andy so perfectly that for a long time, we never even talked about doing another Toy Story movie. But when Andrew, Pete, Lee, and I came up with this new idea, I just could not stop thinking about it. It was so exciting to me, I knew we had to make this movie — and I wanted to direct it myself."
Lasseter is said to be one of the major forces responsible for Pixar's dominance in animation and high quality story telling. He is currently both Disney and Pixar's chief creative officer, and he previously directed both the first and second Toy Story films.
Pixar had previously brought the the Toy Story characters back for a pair of TV specials and a number of short films, which have been generally well received.
Toy Story debuted in 1995 and starred Tom Hanks, Tim Allen and Don Rickles. It was famously touted as the first computer-animated feature film. The third Toy Story film grossed more than $1 billion worldwide.
The series has progressed in somewhat close to real time, with the original trilogy having the toys' owner grow from a boy in 1995 to a college-bound teenager in 2010.
Disney bought animation studio Pixar for $7.4bn (£4.7bn) in 2006.
There are least three other Pixar films in the pipeline. Next year will see both Inside Out and The Good Dinosaur, and 2016 will have the Finding Nemo sequel, Finding Dory.