FRIDAY AFTERNOON UPDATE: Disney/Pixar‘s Toy Story 5 is not only bound for the biggest opening of the year, but potentially the the largest over the last two years with a Friday-Sunday of $160M-$170M+ in U.S./Canada after a Friday that’s growing with more than $71M at 4,425 theaters. That figure, of course, includes last night’s $17.5M franchise best and YTD previews. We’ll wait for this opening to settle before we start placing it among best animated and Pixar openings.
The tricky factor is how big today is and figuring out what tomorrow is. Sources believe that Saturday will be -20% or less from today’s box office plus previews. As we mentioned, forecasts were wild for Toy Story 4 heading into the weekend with $160M. It simmered down to $120.9M which was a franchise best and still damn good. As the old tracking excuse goes, sometimes it’s hard to forecast these $100M+ openers given the small sample with precision.
Best opening of 2025 was A Minecraft Movie with $162.7M and previews/first Friday of $57.1M. The best opening of 2024, and the last biggie, was Deadpool & Wolverine at $211.4M.
RelishMix measures the social media reach before opening for the Andrew Stanton directed movie at 711.8M across Tik Tok, Instagram, X, Facebook and YouTube which is higher than 2022’s Minions: The Rise of Gru (668.4M) and The Incredibles 2 (687M). YouTube views at 341M are higher than Kung Fu Panda 4‘s 172M and Rise of Gru‘s 220M.
Reports RelishMix, “The Taylor Swift music effect brings 538M fans with all of her social channels activated and pushing materials, especially her song “I Knew It, I Knew You”. Tim Allen is the only cast who’s activated with reach at 160K, with the Hanks social network of 34.9M which has yet to activate on the film.”
Expounds the social media analytics firm in their latest report: “Convo runs positive for Toy Story 5 as Pixar discovers the most effective millennial marketing strategy ever invented: Remind adults they are old now and hand them an emotional support cowboy. The tech-versus-toys angle lands hard with parents and older Gen Z, creating a surprisingly thoughtful emotional hook instead of just nostalgia bait. A huge portion of chatter frames the film as a generational handoff movie in the same emotional lane as Toy Story 3, while others compare the evolving themes to the maturity jump in Cars 3. Fans also respond strongly to Woody and Buzz reuniting, with the trailer triggering emotional memory recall more than spectacle. ‘This almost made me cry. I’m 32 years old and the feeling this gave me was amazing’ and ‘I’ll be 27 when Toy Story 5 comes out and now I have two small children to take to the cinema.’ The ‘iPad kid’ commentary unexpectedly becomes the trailer’s breakout conversation driver, positioning the film as culturally relevant rather than purely nostalgic. ‘At first I thought ugh not another Toy Story but the plot is perfect, raise awareness on iPad babies.’ Even skeptical viewers soften once the emotional themes kick in. ‘I thought this was gonna feel like a soulless cash grab sequel but I like the traditional play versus tech angle” and “This feels like it’s going back to its roots.’”
Top 5 weekend:
- Toy Story 5 (Dis) 4,425 theaters, Fri $71M, 3-day $160M-$170M/Wk 1
- Disclosure Day (Uni) 3,824 theaters, Fri $4.6M, 3-day $16.5M (-63%), Total $77.7M/Wk 2
- Obsession (Foc) 3,053 theaters, Fri $4.3M, 3-day $13.1M (-31%), Total $214.7M/Wk 6
- Backrooms (A24) 2,851 theaters, Fri $2.4M, 3-day $7.5M (-35%), Total $175.3M/Wk 4,
- Scary Movie (Par) 3,490 theaters, Fri $2.2M 3-day $7M (-51%)/Total $97.9M/ Wk 3
Notables:
Leviticus (NEON) 1,076 theaters, Fri $1.5M 3-day $3.85M/Wk 1
Death of Robin Hood (A24) 1,782 theaters, Fri $1M, 3-day $2.75M/Wk 1
Girls Like Girls (For) 504 theaters, Fri $900K, 3-day $2M/Wk 1
UPDATED AFTER EXCLUSIVE: Toy Story 5 previews are at $17.5 million, not only the best for the franchise but also the second best ever for Pixar as well as any animated movie, and the best 2026 year-to-date. The Rotten Tomatoes audience score is at a very healthy 93%, just under the 94% of Toy Story 4 and Inside Out 2.
The top five previews of all time for an animated movie at the domestic box office are Incredibles 2 ($18.5M, $182.6M 3-day opening), Toy Story 5, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse ($17.4M, $120.7M), Moana 2 ($13.8M Tuesday previews, $140M 3-day) and Inside Out 2 ($13M, $154.2M).
Today with the Juneteenth holiday in the U.S. is expected to be a box office day, so anyone calculating box office will need to figure the appropriate uptick (sans previews) for Saturday. Overall, the outlook for Toy Story 5 is $140M over three days for U.S./Canada, which would easily be a franchise record.
RELATED: The 25 Highest-Grossing Animated Films Of All Time At The Global Box Office
So far, Toy Story 5 is No. 1 in the markets where it has bowed with a current foreign take of $26M. The Andrew Stanton-directed fifthquel bowed in 28 markets Thursday including Italy, Australia, Brazil and Mexico, taking the full total to 41 material markets to date.
Mexico is the biggest territory so far with $6.7M, which also doubled as the second-highest opening day of 2026 and a strong 86% market share.
Brazil with $1.4M counts a 66% market share. In the rest of Latin America, the pic posted the second–highest Pixar opening day of all time in Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay. It was the third-highest Pixar opening day of all time in Colombia, Peru ($1M, currently seventh best market for the pic) and Central America. It was also the highest opening day of 2026 to date in Chile and Paraguay. Even though Toy Story 5 posted the second highest opening day of 2026 to date in Argentina, that market is currently the pic’s fifth best with $1.1M.
On Wednesday, Woody, Buzz, and Jessie saw the third best opening day of 2026 in France, with a No. 1 rank and current cume of $2.1M.
The movie took a 51% share in Spain, where its first day was the third highest for an MPA movie YTD; current cume is $1.7M. The pic also opened well in both Poland and Netherlands with strong market shares in Sweden (49%) and Finland (45%) on Wednesday. In Italy on Thursday, Toy Story 5 saw the fifth-highest opening day for a Pixar movie with a 67% share. In the rest of Europe, Disney’s latest posted the highest animated opening day of all time in Saudi Arabia, and the highest Pixar opening day of all time in UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Egypt.
On Wednesday, the pic also opened in Korea, where it nabbed a 50% market share and repped the third-highest MPA opening day YTD, and the fifth-highest Pixar opening of all time. Social scores are strong with Naver 9.69/CGV 98%. Currently, Korea is tied with Argentina as Toy Story 5‘s fifth best market with $1.1M.
Yesterday, Toy Story 5 charted the third-highest Pixar opening day of all time in Australia with a 52% market share. In the rest of Asia, it posted the second-highest MPA opening day of 2026 to date in Singapore and Thailand and was also the fourth-highest Pixar opening day of all time and third-highest opening day of 2026 to date in New Zealand; market shares are above 45% in all three markets.
On Wednesday, Toy Story 5 posted the best Pixar opening day of all-time in Malaysia (as well as best for a MPA title YTD), the third-highest opening day for the Emeryville, CA studio (and second best for MPA title YTD) in the Philippines, as well as the best MPA opening day YTD in Indonesia. Alright, Toy Story 5 is doing fantastic everywhere, OK?
Joe Bird in ‘Leviticus’
Ben Saunders/Sundance Institute
Elsewhere at the domestic B.O., Neon’s Sundance genre acquisition Leviticus posted $460,000 in early screenings and previews. The Adrian Chiarella-directed movie is 92% certified fresh with critics. Note, Together, Neon’s Sundance pickup that opened last summer, had previews of $900K, but that Dave France-Alison Brie horror romance was on twice as many screens.
As far as the week goes, Universal/Amblin’s Steven Spielberg movie Disclosure Day beat Obsession in the weekdays — except for yesterday, where the Curry Barker movie was $3M to the alien pic’s $2.9M.
1.) Disclosure Day (Uni) 3,824 theatres, Wk $61.2M/Wk 1
2.) Obsession (Foc) 3,068 theaters, Wk $32.2M (-25%), Total $201.6M/Wk 5
3.) Scary Movie (Par) 3,504 theaters, Wk $20.8M (-70%), Total $90.8M/Wk 2
4.) Backrooms (A24) 3,404 theaters, Wk $18.9M (-52%), Total $167.7M/Wk 3
5.) Masters of the Universe (AMZ) 3,677 theaters, Wk $13.2M (-55%), Total $51.3M/Wk 2
PREVIOUS EXCLUSIVE: We’re hearing from box office sources that Disney/Pixar’s Toy Story 5 is in play for a franchise record tonight when it comes to previews, around $13M-$14M, maybe more. Anything higher than $12M is a record preview night for the franchise. That’s what Toy Story 4 posted back in 2019 off previews that begin in select theaters at 5PM followed by a 6PM wide break.
If that $13M-$14M+ figure holds, that would rep the best previews 2026 has seen so far, higher than Lionsgate’s Michael ($12.6M), Amazon MGM Studios’ Project Hail Mary ($12M) and Disney/Lucasfilm’s Star Wars: Mandalorian and Grogu ($12M). A reminder that Illumination/Universal didn’t hold previews for Super Mario Galaxy Movie, which currently owns the best 3-day opening at the domestic box office YTD with $131.7M.
All good vibes for Toy Story 5 heading into the weekend with a 94% certified fresh critical score. No audience score yet. We heard heading into the weekend that the Andrew Stanton directed fifthquel had $25M in advance ticket sales, ahead of Super Mario Galaxy Movie. Domestic outlook is $140M+ at 4,425 locations with more than enough battery life from PLF and Imax screens. Global forecast is $275M, $135M expected from an 87% footprint abroad including China.
Biggest previews ever for a Pixar movie in U.S./Canada belongs to 2018’s Incredibles 2 ($18.5M), which also owns the weekend record for the Emeryville, CA studio ($182.6M).
2010’s Toy Story 3 posted previews of $4M, back when showtimes began at midnight.
We’ll have more updates in the AM.