‘Toy Story 5’ Logs the Second-Biggest Animated Preview Night in Box Office History
Few animated franchises carry the kind of multigenerational loyalty that the ‘Toy Story’ series commands, and ‘Toy Story 5’ is already proving that appetite for Woody, Buzz, and the rest of Pixar’s beloved toy box has not dimmed in the slightest.
Since the original film arrived in 1995, every new chapter has functioned as something larger than a movie, drawing families together with a blend of nostalgia and genuine emotional weight that very few properties in Hollywood can reliably replicate. With seven years having passed since the previous installment, anticipation heading into this opening weekend was understandably enormous.
Directed by Academy Award winner Andrew Stanton and co-directed by Kenna Harris, the fifth film reassembles much of its iconic voice cast. Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, and Joan Cusack return alongside newcomers to the franchise, with Greta Lee voicing Lilypad, a brand new tablet device whose arrival in Bonnie’s household upends everything the toys thought they knew about playtime.
Adding a fresh cultural dimension to an already event-sized release, Taylor Swift announced she had contributed an original song titled “I Knew It, I Knew You” for the film, written for the character Jessie.
The audiences showed up in force before the weekend had even formally begun. ‘Toy Story 5’ previews came in at $17.5 million, not only the best in franchise history but the second-best ever for Pixar as well as for any animated film, and the strongest preview performance of 2026 to date. The result places this fifth installment firmly in record-breaking territory before a single ticket has been sold on opening day proper.
The only animated preview that ranks higher belongs to ‘Incredibles 2’, which holds the all-time record at $18.5 million, followed by ‘Toy Story 5’, then ‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’ at $17.4 million, ‘Moana 2’ at $13.8 million, and ‘Inside Out 2’ at $13 million. ‘Toy Story 4’ earned $12 million from its own Thursday previews en route to a $120 million opening weekend back in 2019, meaning the latest installment already holds a significant lead over its direct predecessor from the gate.
The film also launched in 28 countries on Thursday, bringing its overseas total across the first two days to $26 million and pushing the early combined global figure to $43.5 million. According to Variety, the domestic opening weekend is currently tracking between $145 million and $150 million, with some projections stretching as high as $160 million to $175 million off the back of glowing critical notices.
‘Toy Story 5’ is sitting at a 94 percent Certified Fresh critical rating ahead of its opening frame, with early reactions out of the premiere landing as strongly positive. The Rotten Tomatoes audience score sits at a healthy 93 percent, suggesting that critics and general audiences are aligned in their enthusiasm for where Pixar has taken this story.
‘Incredibles 2’ and its all-time animated opening weekend record of $182.7 million remains the summit, but given where Thursday night numbers have landed, the question of whether Woody and Buzz can finally claim that crown is one worth debating in the comments.
