‘Toy Story 5’ Is Already Rewriting Box Office History Before the Weekend Even Begins
The summer of animated blockbusters is well and truly underway, and Disney and Pixar’s crown jewel franchise has arrived exactly on time to remind the industry what genuine cultural phenomenon looks like. ‘Toy Story 5‘ is the fifth chapter in a 31-year-old series, and far from showing signs of fatigue, it is ascending with a momentum that has the entire exhibition world paying close attention.
The mainline franchise has posted a clean upward trajectory across every instalment, from the original film’s domestic debut in 1995 all the way through to the fourth entry’s record opening in 2019.
The context for this latest chapter matters enormously. Pixar endured a genuinely turbulent stretch in the pandemic era, with straight-to-streaming releases and underperforming theatrical entries eroding confidence in the studio’s commercial instincts.
The tide began to turn when ‘Inside Out 2’ became the highest-grossing film in Pixar’s history, ultimately approaching $1.7 billion worldwide, and the studio has been rebuilding on that foundation ever since. The domestic box office is also running 13% ahead of last year, meaning ‘Toy Story 5’ is arriving into an already energised marketplace primed for a major event.
Into that marketplace, the early box office signals for ‘Toy Story 5’ have been nothing short of extraordinary. The film hauled in $17.5 million from Thursday night previews in the US alone, the highest preview performance of 2026 so far, and simultaneously opened in 28 international markets, pushing its global total to $43.5 million before a single Friday ticket had been scanned.
Box office analyst @Luiz_Fernando_J noted on X that the film was tracking to cross the $100 million global mark on its opening Friday, with overseas Wednesday and Thursday numbers already surpassing the comparable early international results of both ‘Moana 2’ and ‘Frozen 2’. Mexico emerged as the biggest overseas territory with $6.7M, representing the second highest opening day of the year in that market, while Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay all posted historic Pixar milestones.
A final domestic forecast from BoxOffice Pro places the opening weekend between $160 million and $175 million, which would make it the highest domestic debut for any animated film this decade, surpassing ‘Inside Out 2’s $154.2 million, and the biggest film of 2026 to date. It would also place it third on the all-time domestic animated opening list, sitting just below ‘The Lion King’ and ‘Incredibles 2’. Globally, projections reported by TheWrap point toward a figure north of $275 million across the opening frame, a number that would be a franchise record by a wide margin.
‘Toy Story 5’ is directed by Andrew Stanton, whose credits include ‘Finding Nemo’ and ‘Wall-E’, with Tom Hanks, Tim Allen and Joan Cusack all returning to voice Woody, Buzz Lightyear and Jessie respectively. The story centres on the toys’ world being upended when their owner Bonnie becomes consumed by a smart tablet called Lilypad, threading a timely commentary on screen addiction through the franchise’s signature emotional storytelling. Taylor Swift also contributed an original song to the soundtrack.
The film holds a 95% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes heading into the weekend, and its strategic placement across a Juneteenth and Father’s Day holiday stretch gives it a meaningful lift in casual family footfall. Across all five films, the ‘Toy Story’ franchise has now generated over $3 billion at the global box office, and the series ranks as the most watched film property on Disney Plus with over two billion hours streamed worldwide.
With numbers this large and momentum this strong, the conversation has already shifted from whether ‘Toy Story 5’ will be a hit to just how historic a run it might ultimately deliver. What do you think: will Woody and Buzz finally claim the all-time animated opening weekend record, or does ‘Incredibles 2’ hold its ground?
