Toy Story 5 Breaks Box Office Records! Why?

Toy Story 5 Breaks Box Office Records! Why?

Toy Story 5 opened in theaters this past weekend and to nobody’s surprise, the film had a great weekend at the box office. Where it had record-breaking box-office numbers, opening with a $160 million at the domestic box office. Here are my overall thoughts on these numbers. 

My Thoughts

         So, going into 2026, I predicted Toy Story 5 to be one of the biggest movies of the year. The earlier two Toy Story movies both made over $1 billion, and these Disney animated sequels continue to print money at the box office. Last year, Zootopia 2 came out and became the highest grossing Hollywood movie of all time. In 2024, Inside Out 2 also held that record and absolutely crushed it at the box office. So, it was likely that Toy Story 5 would be another $1 billion success for animated movies, and right now it is doing exactly what it needs to do to make $1 billion. The film had a $160 million domestic opening and then opened to $312 million worldwide. Toy Story 5 is the second biggest worldwide opening for a Pixar movie before Inside Out 2, which made about $384 million. As far as its domestic numbers of $160 million, here are some of the records it has broken. 

• The biggest opening of 2026
• The biggest opening for a Toy Story movie
• The 2nd biggest opening ever for an animated movie
• The 2nd biggest opening ever for Pixar behind Incredibles 2

         There’s only more interesting statistics to throw in here, but Cinemark revealed this morning that they had a record-breaking weekend this past weekend. They posted something on Instagram where they revealed these statistics…

• All-time high opening weekend box office for a family film with Toy Story 5
• Biggest June box office weekend in Cinemark History
• Best weekend box office of 2026 

       This is just another reason and proof that Toy Story 5 is crushing it at the box office and within a matter of weeks will fly past $1 billion.

 

Why These Numbers?

         Why did Toy Story 5 have a fantastic opening weekend? A big reason is what I said earlier: those animated sequels, specifically Disney animated sequels, absolutely crushed it at the box office. What is funny about this, is that there is this constant discourse on the internet about how we (the people) are tired of these sequels, reboots, and remakes and we want Hollywood to make more original movies. Toy Story 5 coming out and doing record breaking numbers is telling Hollywood that we want more sequels. The issue with us not getting more original movies, the audience is to blame for that, not Hollywood. We are voting with our dollars that we want more sequels when we buy a ticket to Toy Story 5, and we do not buy a ticket to Hoppers. 2028, is giving us Incredibles 3, that will be another $1 billion hit for Pixar. 

         Another big reason as to why this movie opened so great, is because Toy Story is a multigenerational franchise. The original film came out in 1995, so it is 31 years old. And the people that were kids when the original came out, now have kids of their own and can experience a Toy Story movie with their kids in the theater. There is something so special about that experience of being able to relive childhood memories with your kid. Toy Story is this franchise that is built around this idea of nostalgia and growing up. People can watch these movies at any age and at any stage of life and be able to connect with it because it is tackling such universal themes and ideas. They do have the heart and the humor that you expect, but they can also be great talking pieces for parents and children, specifically Toy Story 5 since it is dealing with iPad kids. 

Future Weekends/$1 billion Timeline 

         So, one final thing to talk about here is what will Toy Story 5 do in its second weekend. This weekend it has Supergirl coming out, which will pull screens from Toy Story 5, but looking at Supergirl’s opening weekend tracking, I think Toy Story 5 beats Supergirl next weekend. The film is tracking for a $51 million opening weekend, which is not a great number. Toy Story 5 will need to have a 70% second weekend drop for Supergirl to surpass it. Looking at other Pixar sequels, Incredibles 2 and Inside Out 2 that had similar opening weekend numbers. Incredibles 2 dropped 56%, which is a big second weekend drop for an animated movie. Normally, animated movies have great legs and smaller drops. But Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom opened during Incredibles 2’s second weekend, so it had big competition. But it still made $80 million, which is a fantastic number especially from direct competition from a major blockbuster. Inside Out 2 had a 34.4% drop, which is a fantastic number, it still made $101 million in its second weekend. I do not know if Toy Story 5 will have quite that good of a second weekend, because it is rare for a movie to make $100 million in two different weekends. However, I still think it will hold fantastic. I am predicting a $90-$95 million second weekend for Toy Story 5, so dropping between 40%-44% is my guess. Word of mouth is positive, not as strong as the earlier films. But people are loving it, it is Toy Story and people love that franchise and these characters. 

People are wondering with Minions & Monsters opening at the beginning of July if that will at all affect Toy Story 5’s legs and box office. I do not see it changing the box office that much. Simply because, Inside Out 2 opened weeks before Despicable Me 4, and it still had great legs and was making $20-$30 million despite having direct competition.  

I was using some AI to try and figure out the box office trajectory of Toy Story 5, and it predicted the film to make $1 billion in mid-July, with a 90%-95% chance that it is making $1 billion.