Toy Story 5 Opens to a Franchise-Record $160 Million

Woody and Buzz still have it. Disney and Pixar's "Toy Story 5" opened to $160 million across 4,425 North American theaters this weekend, the biggest domestic debut of 2026 and the largest start the franchise has ever had.

That figure clears the previous franchise high — "Toy Story 4" launched with $120 million in 2019 — and pushes past Universal's "Super Mario Galaxy Movie," which held the year's record at $131.7 million since April. Overseas the film took $152 million, for a global opening of $312 million against a reported $250 million production budget.

Only one animated film has ever opened bigger in the United States: 2018's "Incredibles 2," at $182.7 million. For a fifth entry in a series that began in 1995, landing within striking distance of that record says something about how durable the brand has become — and how thoroughly family audiences now drive the theatrical business.

The sequel arrived with the kind of word-of-mouth studios pray for: a 94% score on Rotten Tomatoes and an "A" grade from CinemaScore audiences. It also had the calendar on its side, opening Thursday into a long weekend bracketed by Juneteenth and Father's Day.

Directed by Pixar veteran Andrew Stanton, the film sends Woody (Tom Hanks), Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) and Jessie (Joan Cusack) up against a new rival their kid can't put down: a chatty smart tablet named Lilypad. The premise is almost on the nose — analog toys losing a child's attention to a glowing screen — and it lands in a year when the industry is asking exactly that question about its own audience. Taylor Swift wrote an original song, "I Knew It, I Knew You," for the soundtrack, a piece of marketing firepower few family films can match.

What the number really confirms is a pattern. Animated sequels have become some of the safest bets in the business: Disney's "Inside Out 2" finished its run at $1.6 billion in 2024, and 2025's "Zootopia 2" reached $1.8 billion. The current franchise leader, "Toy Story 4," ended at $1.07 billion worldwide. If "Toy Story 5" follows the trajectory of its recent stablemates, it is positioned to become the highest-grossing film the series has produced.

"Family moviegoing has been leading the industry since it came roaring back from the pandemic in 2023. A lot of the genre's success is coming from sequels and live-action remakes."

David A. Gross, who publishes the box office newsletter FranchiseRe

The rest of the chart looked thin by comparison. Steven Spielberg's sci-fi adventure "Disclosure Day" fell 62% in its second weekend to $17 million, a steep drop that suggests the film is struggling to reach beyond an older core. A24's "The Death of Robin Hood," starring Hugh Jackman, limped in at ninth.

Pixar spent a decade proving it could make audiences cry over toys. The harder trick, the one this weekend's receipts confirm it has pulled off, is making them keep buying tickets to watch those toys worry about being replaced.