The new Toy Story movie is built around a little girl who would rather stare at a tablet than play with her toys. Over the weekend, millions of families put down their own screens and went to watch it — handing the Pixar sequel a $160 million opening in North America, the biggest the franchise has ever recorded.
That three-day total, drawn from 4,425 theaters, gave “Toy Story 5” the year’s largest domestic debut, edging past the $131.7 million start of Universal’s “Super Mario Galaxy Movie.” It cleared the franchise’s own high-water mark, 2019’s “Toy Story 4” and its $120 million, and slotted in as the second-largest animated opening on record — behind only the $182.7 million that “Incredibles 2” managed in 2018.
Add the $152 million it took overseas and the global tally lands at $312 million against a production budget of $250 million, marketing not included. For a series that last released a film seven years ago, that is a loud return.
The number stands out partly because of what surrounds it. Original animation has had a rough few years at the box office, but animated sequels have become some of the surest bets in the business. Disney’s “Inside Out 2” finished its 2024 run at $1.6 billion; “Zootopia 2” closed out 2025 at $1.8 billion. Measured against that company, a $160 million Friday-to-Sunday is less a surprise than a confirmation.
“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. Pixar and Disney are particularly good at growing their series from episode to episode. It’s extremely impressive.”
David A. Gross, who publishes the box office newsletter FranchiseRe
If the comparison holds, “Toy Story 5” is positioned to become the highest-grossing entry in the series. The current leader is “Toy Story 4” at $1.07 billion worldwide — a target this opening puts within reach rather than fantasy.
A film about screens, sold to families on screens
Directed by Pixar veteran Andrew Stanton, the sequel picks up with Woody (Tom Hanks), Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), Jessie (Joan Cusack) and the rest of the gang as their kid, Bonnie, falls for a chatty smart tablet named Lilypad, voiced by Greta Lee. The toys, in other words, are not fighting a rival cowboy or a daycare this time. They are competing with a device — a premise that lands somewhere between a sight gag and a parenting documentary, and one reviewers largely bought. The film holds a 94% score on Rotten Tomatoes and an “A” grade from CinemaScore audiences.
Disney layered on the kind of extras that turn an opening into an event. Taylor Swift wrote a new song for the soundtrack, “I Knew It, I Knew You,” and the voice cast stretched well past the regulars to include Conan O’Brien and Craig Robinson. Ahead of the release, we asked whether Woody and Buzz could carry that kind of weight; the weekend answered with a yes that few were betting against.
The map outside the U.S.
The overseas picture was just as strong, and unusually wide. According to Deadline’s international tally, the $312 million global start ranks as the second-best Pixar launch ever, trailing the $384 million that “Inside Out 2” pulled in 2024. Mexico led all foreign territories at $26.6 million. The United Kingdom delivered $20 million and its highest-grossing single day ever for a Pixar release. In China — a market where Hollywood’s footing has been shaky — the film opened to $18 million, a franchise record that beat “Toy Story 4’s” $13 million.
Even the Middle East held up. Distribution sources told Deadline that ticket buying there has steadied since Iran stopped firing missiles into Israel, and the film set animated opening records in Egypt, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
Nobody else came close. Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi adventure “Disclosure Day” took a distant second domestically with about $17 million in its second weekend, a 62% drop that suggests it is struggling to reach much beyond its core audience. The contrast is hard to miss: a film aimed at grown-ups fading while one aimed at six-year-olds sets records.
The reviews this past week leaned on a familiar worry — whether a fifth installment could justify itself, and whether the machines might steal the show from the toys we came for. Some parents, eyeing the tablet-obsessed plot, braced for an awkward conversation on the drive home. None of it dented the gross. For now the toys have outsold the tablet, though the truce is short: Universal sends “Minions” and “Monsters” into theaters on July 1, and Bonnie’s playroom is about to get crowded again.
