“Toy Story 5” Opens to $160 Million, a Franchise Record

“Toy Story 5” opened with an estimated $160 million in U.S. and Canadian ticket sales over Father’s Day weekend, the biggest debut of 2026 and a record for the Pixar franchise, according to studio estimates reported Sunday. The Associated Press, in a story carried by NBC News, said the film easily beat the previous series best, the roughly $120 million opening of “Toy Story 4” in 2019. Internationally the film took in $152 million, for a worldwide total of $312 million, both CNBC and the AP reported.

Among animated films, only “Incredibles 2,” which opened to $182.7 million in 2018, has had a larger domestic debut, according to both reports. The franchise has collected more than $3 billion at the global box office since the first film in 1995, and two installments have topped $1 billion worldwide. Paul Dergarabedian, head of marketplace trends at Rentrak, told CNBC the film is set up for weeks of strong business as it “powers toward $1 billion and beyond”; the AP said “Toy Story 5” is all but certain to cross that line.

The audience skewed young. EntTelligence data cited by CNBC showed about 11.5 million moviegoers bought tickets, and more than a fourth chose premium large-format screens, with IMAX reporting $11.5 million in domestic sales and $18.4 million globally. Nearly 70 percent of ticket buyers were in family groups, CNBC reported. Dergarabedian said the film had appeal “across every imaginable audience demographic.” He pointed out that family-friendly PG-rated releases have outperformed PG-13 and R-rated films over the past two years, and that animated movies tend not to be front-loaded, building through word of mouth.

Audiences and critics are so far on board. The AP reported very good reviews and an “A” CinemaScore, an exit-poll grade that suggests the picture will keep drawing crowds for weeks. Directed by Andrew Stanton, who made “Finding Nemo” and “WALL-E,” the film returns Tom Hanks as Woody, Tim Allen as Buzz Lightyear and Joan Cusack as Jessie. In the story, the toys are pushed aside when Bonnie gets a new tablet. It includes a new Taylor Swift song, “I Knew It, I Knew You,” the AP reported.

The bet was expensive. The series appeared to end with “Toy Story 3” in 2010, and the decision to revive it nearly a decade later was controversial but “extremely lucrative,” the AP wrote; “Toy Story 4” topped $1 billion. The fifth film cost $250 million to make, not counting marketing, the AP reported. The franchise is among the most profitable for The Walt Disney Co. and has generated billions more in merchandise.

The rest of the weekend’s chart was quiet. Steven Spielberg’s science-fiction thriller “Disclosure Day,” starring Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor and Colman Domingo, fell 61 percent in its second weekend to $17 million, the AP reported, bringing its global total to $160.4 million against a $115 million budget. The A24 revisionist legend “The Death of Robin Hood” opened with $2.6 million on 1,762 screens.