‘Toy Story 5’ Shows Hollywood Is Still Not Releasing Enough Kids Movies

Each year, there’s usually three or four kids movies or family films that crack the Top 10 for the annual domestic box office, but to see the staggering numbers that “Toy Story 5” put up this weekend makes you think that Hollywood is still underserving that audience.

In its first weekend, the fifth entry in Pixar’s flagship franchise made $160 million domestic and $312 million worldwide, making it the highest opening of 2026 to date and the second-biggest animated opening weekend ever domestically, behind only Pixar’s own “Incredibles 2” from 2018, which made $182.7 million worldwide. It’s already good enough for the 24th best domestic opening weekend ever, coincidentally nestled in between two “Dark Knight” films.

“Toy Story 5” was a little behind last year’s smash “A Minecraft Movie,” which did $162.7 million in its opening weekend. That film finished below $1 billion globally, but it stands to reason that “Toy Story 5” could easily get there and be just the second $1 billion movie of 2026 after “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” assuming “Michael” falls just short while currently sitting at $959 billion.

“Toy Story 4” did manage to sneak past $1 billion, powered by an especially strong international gross, and so far each “Toy Story” movie has done better at the box office than the last. Internationally, only “Inside Out 2” opened better for a Pixar film, and that movie made over $1 billion internationally alone.

So, yeah, “Toy Story 5” looks to be in great shape.

The question is if other family films start to chip away at “Toy Story 5’s” hold in coming weeks? It frankly seems like with, how well family films have done this year, it won’t make a difference. Its next big competitor on July 1 is “Minions & Monsters,” and those films too can do close to a billion in their sleep. Disney has its own live-action “Moana” opening on July 10, and that one is also tracking for an opening between $80-90 million. In August, you have “PAW Patrol: The Dino Movie” and “Coyote vs. Acme,” and others like “Shaun the Sheep,” “Forgotten Island,” “Wildwood,” “The Cat in the Hat,” “The Angry Birds Movie,” and “Hexed” are all still to come.

But even films like Pixar’s “Hoppers” and Sony Pictures Animation’s “GOAT” have done better than expected this year and brought out a younger crowd. And these movies are clearly significant toward the overall recovery of the box office. The last year didn’t have at least a few family movies in the annual Top 10 was in 2022 when families still weren’t quite yet willing to risk it after COVID, and now you’re starting to see the numbers tick up.

Per Rentrak, this year’s estimated box office to date is at $4.4 billion, which is 14.2 percent above where we were at this same point last year. It’s starting to look similar to what it was way back in 2011 when the year-to-date domestic total was $4.5 billion. For just the summer, the added boost of “Toy Story 5” has 2026 just $35 million, or less than 2 percent, behind where the summer was at this point in 2019, coincidentally exactly when the last “Toy Story” movie opened on June 21. That summer also had “Avengers: Endgame” open just before May, and it would later add on “The Lion King” live-action remake, so we’ll see if the remainder of 2026 also has those caliber of surprises.

“’Toy Story’ has been breaking ground since it first hit the screen more than 30 years ago, and it’s wonderful to see ‘Toy Story 5’ continuing that tradition and connecting with audiences around the world to deliver the biggest opening for the franchise and the biggest of this year as well,” Alan Bergman, Chairman, Disney Entertainment Studios, said in a statement. “Thanks to all the fans, and congratulations to our filmmakers, Andrew Stanton, Kenna Harris, and Lindsey Collins, and the Pixar team led by Pete Docter and Jim Morris, as well as our fantastic marketing and distribution teams who have helped us reach this milestone debut.”