Toy Story 5 opens with $160M domestic, smashing franchise records and lifting summer box office 15%

Toy Story 5 just dropped $160 million domestically in its opening weekend, setting a new Pixar franchise record and claiming the biggest opening weekend of the year, according to studio estimates Sunday (June 21). The number matters for reasons that go beyond bragging rights: it signals that the audience is still willing to show up for established brands, and it also confirms that the movie can carry itself for weeks, not just weekend hype.

That $160 million beat the previous franchise-best debut of $120 million for Toy Story 4 in 2019. The opening also translated internationally into $152 million in opening-weekend sales, for a worldwide haul of $312 million. This is the kind of launch that turns “maybe it will hold” into “this is likely a sustained theatrical business,” and it gives Disney real leverage in a summer market where every hold percentage and every second-weekend drop can make or break the internal budget math.

The bigger context: this franchise is one of The Walt Disney Co.’s most profitable engines. Before Toy Story 5 launched, the movies had collectively grossed more than $3 billion, while also pulling in billions from merchandising. Even the series’ earlier “we might have ended it” moment did not hold: after Toy Story 3 in 2010, the franchise seemed resolved, and then Disney revived it almost a decade later, which has been controversial in theory but extremely lucrative in practice. Toy Story 4 exceeded $1 billion in ticket sales, and Toy Story 5 is “all but certain” to as well, based on the trajectory implied by this opening.

And yes, the movie comes with fresh signal inside the studio’s usual playbook. Toy Story 5 returns a voice cast led by Tom Hanks as Woody, Tim Allen as Buzz Lightyear, and Joan Cusack as Jessie. The story pushes the toys aside when Bonnie gets a new tablet. It is directed by Andrew Stanton, the Pixar veteran who helmed Finding Nemo (2003) and WALL-E (2008). Then there’s the crossover moment that keeps the marketing flywheel spinning: Toy Story 5 features a new song by Taylor Swift, “I Knew It, I Knew You.” In other words, this launch is not only a franchise play, it is also a mainstream culture play.

The release appears to be getting both critic and audience validation, which is the part investors and boards usually watch closely because it predicts staying power. Reviews have been very good, and audiences gave Toy Story 5 a CinemaScore of “A.” That “A” matters because it suggests it should remain a force in theaters for weeks. When you combine an A CinemaScore with a franchise-record opening, you get something studios love: demand that is not fragile. In a market where second weekend performance often reveals whether a launch is front-loaded by fans alone or backed by broader appeal, Toy Story 5 looks like the real deal.

Meanwhile, the rest of the weekend reads like a stress test for the summer slate. Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day slipped to second place with $17 million in its second weekend, a drop of 61% from its first weekend. That is not the hold Universal Pictures was hoping for. The film has a $115 million budget and stars Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, and Colman Domingo, and it has grossed $160.4 million globally in two weeks. The takeaway for decision-makers is blunt: the adult-oriented thriller may still find a lane, but the big breakout energy is not showing up yet.

That same pattern shows up in how smaller releases performed against the majors. A24’s The Death of Robin Hood flopped with $2.6 million on 1,762 screens, a modest $20 million budget and a “C+” CinemaScore after mixed reviews. Neon’s Leviticus came just ahead with $2.7 million from 1,076 theaters. It is written and directed by Adrian Chiarella and centers on two teen boys who meet at conversion therapy. Leviticus began with good word-of-mouth and a small $3.5 million budget, but it also faced unusually strong competition in the still-potent horror hits Obsession and Backrooms. In horror, Obsession remained the top choice, nearly equaling its $17 million opening weekend in its sixth weekend, and it cost less than $1 million to make. The Focus Features release added $14.2 million to bring its domestic total to $215.8 million and its global haul to $333.3 million.

Put it all together, and the summer box office signal improves. With Toy Story 5 and Obsession driving sales, the summer box office is up 15% from the 2025 summer, according to Rentrak. More impressively, summer ticket sales are nearly equal to the 2019 summer at the same point, not accounting for inflation. The summer to date is just 1.9% down from 2019. Paul Dergarabedian, head of marketplace trends for Rentrak, expects Hollywood is heading for its best summer since before the pandemic. He frames it as a hybrid summer, suggesting a new blueprint: “To me, this is a hybrid summer and this could be the new blueprint for how you build the perfect summer box-office beast. You throw in a mix of very eclectic films and not just the usual suspects - the big franchise films, the known brands - but also films like Backrooms and Obsession and original films like Disclosure Day.” For peers making slate decisions, this is the uncomfortable lesson: big brands can still dominate, but the year is rewarding diversification, not a single bet.