Pixar posted its biggest domestic opening weekend in years on Saturday. Toy Story 5 pulled in an estimated $164 million from 4,425 theaters — a new franchise record, the largest animated debut of 2026, and one of the strongest returns any animated film has managed in the post-pandemic era.
The film earned $71 million on Friday alone, a number that pointed toward an exceptional weekend. Saturday confirmed it. Final Sunday estimates are tracking toward that $164 million mark, ahead of the $150–$158 million range analysts had projected earlier in the week.
That result places Toy Story 5 between The Incredibles 2 ($182.4 million in 2018) and Inside Out 2 ($154 million in 2024) on Pixar’s all-time opening weekend list. Toy Story 4 opened to $120.9 million in June 2019. The new film has already surpassed every previous chapter in the series.
Juneteenth provided a boost. The federal holiday fell on a Friday this year, extending the holiday weekend for families and driving full afternoon and evening screenings in major markets. Theater operators reported strong walk-up traffic on Friday and Saturday across the country.
Reception has been strong across the board. The film earned an A on CinemaScore and a 93% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes from both critics and audiences — a rare alignment in any genre. Reviews praised the film’s emotional honesty and its willingness to pick up the story a decade after the events of the fourth installment, rather than reboot the timeline.
The film was tracking $17.5 million in Thursday preview screenings heading into the weekend — a franchise record for a single preview night. That Taylor Swift original song contributed to the film’s cultural footprint before release, debuting at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 last week and pulling in fans who might otherwise have waited for streaming.
Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day finished a distant second at the domestic box office. No other wide release this weekend came close to Toy Story 5, leaving it with clear field across the entire run.
Pixar has not announced a sixth film in the franchise. But with a $164 million domestic debut and strong critical scores pointing to excellent word-of-mouth, the question of a follow-up will come sooner than the studio’s silence suggests. An announcement could come before the end of 2026.
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