The upcoming animated sequel Toy Story 5 has already been predicted to break records at the box office, and a new forecast is providing a glimpse on just how much the Pixar film will earn in its debut. Releasing on June 19 in the US, Toy Story 5 follows Jessie (Joan Cusack) gaining the aid of Woody (Tom Hanks) and Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) to fight back against the tablet Lilypad “Lily” (Greta Lee) for their child’s attention.
Toy Story 5 is on route to breaking a box office record for the Pixar series
An early box office forecast for Toy Story 5 has the film earning $150 million to $175 million in its domestic opening weekend from June 19 to June 21. This is a notable increase from a prior prediction last week that had this range going from $130 million to $160 million.
This new projection is based on an long-range analysis from BoxOffice Pro. To put this in perspective, the highest domestic opener in 2026 is the $131 million for Nintendo and Illumination’s The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. This new range is on par with the $162 million from 2025’s A Minecraft Movie and the $146 million for the live-action Lilo & Stitch. If this prediction holds, it would be the biggest domestic start for any Toy Story film, well above Toy Story 4’s $120 million and Toy Story 3’s $110 million. The film has the opportunity to be one of the few movies to go past the $1 billion mark at the global box office this year (at the time of writing, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is close with its $993 million haul).
The report notes that audiences are hungry for family-friendly animated sequels, as suggested by the Disney box office hits that were Moana 2 and Zootopia 2. While the 2022 Toy Story spinoff Lightyear was a box office bomb, making $226.4 million on a substantial $200 million budget (so it’s break-even point was close to $500 million), it shouldn’t have too much of an impact on Toy Story 5’s success. Other Pixar sequels that have come out during the early summer theatrical window, such as Incredibles 2 and Finding Dory, have done extraordinarily well.
On top of that, other summer blockbusters have largely stepped out of Toy Story 5’s way in the release calendar, as much as they could at least. With the exception of Hugh Jackman’s The Death of Robin Hood that’s also coming out on June 19, the animated sequel will be arriving one week after Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day and two weeks after Masters of the Universe and Scary Movie 6. The film may experience some loss in momentum when Supergirl lands the following week on June 26, but its main competition will be the fellow animated movie Minions & Monsters arriving on July 1. Still, Toy Story 5 has a strong head start over these two blockbusters.
The Disney studio has struggled to make headway over the last few years with its original IPs, with 2022’s Turning Red, 2023’s Elemental, and 2025’s Elio all underperforming. Fortunately, it was able to make up for this with the extraordinary performance of 2024’s Inside Out 2, which made $1.7 billion worldwide. And given that the Toy Story franchise is a flagship Pixar series, this fifth installment has lofty expectations to match or exceed that number.
The sequel’s director, Andrew Stanton, explained why Jessie has replaced Woody as the lead protagonist for the movie. “We had gone to the well of Woody so much, I just felt like he needs a break,” he revealed with MovieWeb. “Jessie was just so prime, probably even a movie ago, to deal with the stuff that’s gone on with her, and she was so ready to be the next leader of the toys in the room.”
