LOS ANGELES — The case against sequels held for about three years after Toy Story 4. Pixar, which had dispatched Woody and the gang with what read at the time as a clean narrative ending in 2019, spent the intervening stretch sending its next four films directly to Disney+ rather than theaters, a commercial necessity during the pandemic that slid, by 2022, into something closer to institutional habit. The studio’s first purely theatrical return, Lightyear, underperformed at the multiplex. Elemental opened to numbers summer analysts called disappointing before the picture found its footing weeks later.
Toy Story 5 has now rendered that entire conversation moot. Disney and Pixar’s sequel, directed by Andrew Stanton with Kenna Harris as co-director, crossed $1 billion in worldwide ticket sales through the July 24-26 weekend: $448.6 million domestic and $573.5 million overseas for a running global total of $1.022 billion, making it the highest-grossing film of 2026 and the studio’s clearest commercial statement in years.
The milestone places it in unusually selective company. Toy Story 5 is the third film in the franchise to reach a billion dollars, following Toy Story 3 in 2010 and Toy Story 4 in 2019. No other animated franchise has produced three separate billion-dollar installments, according to The Wrap. It is also the third release of 2026 to cross the threshold, arriving behind Universal/Illumination’s The Super Mario Galaxy Movie and Lionsgate’s Michael. At 29th all-time domestically and the 59th Hollywood release to pass $1 billion globally, the film has moved into territory where comparisons shift from the current release calendar to the broader history of theatrical exhibition.
The domestic trajectory is where the more specific debate is happening. At roughly $450 million and six weeks into its run, the film is tracking close to the pace of Finding Dory, the 2016 Pixar sequel that still holds the studio’s domestic record at $486 million. The domestic figure has already surpassed Toy Story 4’s $434 million final tally, making this the biggest installment in the franchise at home. Whether Toy Story 5 reaches Finding Dory territory depends almost entirely on what happens when Spider-Man: Brand New Day opens this Friday, a Sony and Marvel release projecting a $200 million-plus domestic debut that will absorb a significant share of the premium large-format screens the Pixar film has held through its run.
The decision to make Toy Story 5 was not universally welcomed when it was announced. Andrew Stanton, whose previous credits include Finding Nemo and WALL-E, returned to a franchise he had not previously helmed; Toy Story 3 was directed by Lee Unkrich and Toy Story 4 by Josh Cooley. Stanton built his story around Lilypad, a high-tech tablet that enters Bonnie’s household and challenges the toys’ sense of purpose. Critics found the execution resonant rather than cynical. The film arrived on Rotten Tomatoes with 92 percent approval from critics and 94 percent from audiences, with a CinemaScore of A reflecting the same family constituency that carried its predecessors.
At the weekend just concluded, Toy Story 5 placed third with $10 million as The Odyssey, Christopher Nolan’s Universal Pictures adaptation of Homer’s epic, posted $87 million in its second domestic weekend. That sophomore frame, a decline of only 29.6 percent from its opening, gave Nolan the best second weekend of his career, surpassing The Dark Knight’s $75.2 million in 2008, NBC News reported. The Odyssey’s cumulative 10-day domestic total reached $286.3 million, with $639.6 million globally, and the film’s retention has prompted studio comparisons to Oppenheimer’s theatrical arc. For Toy Story 5, the durability of the Nolan film illustrates the competitive climate it has navigated through six weeks: the summer of 2026 has not been short on tentpoles, and the Pixar sequel has held its billion-dollar trajectory regardless.
Pixar’s six billion-dollar films now span 16 years: Toy Story 3 (2010), Finding Dory (2016), Incredibles 2 (2018), Toy Story 4 (2019), Inside Out 2 (2024), and Toy Story 5. The studio’s ability to revisit the Woody and Buzz Lightyear universe without triggering the commercial skepticism that greets most franchise sequels reflects the specific loyalty Pixar built with family audiences over three decades. Inside Out 2, which crossed $1.7 billion globally in 2024, began the studio’s rehabilitation after a stretch of direct-to-streaming releases. Toy Story 5 extends that return, and does so at a scale that has made it the dominant box-office story of a summer already defined by Christopher Nolan.
The global picture remains genuinely open. Toy Story 3 finished at $1.067 billion and Toy Story 4 at $1.073 billion, totals Toy Story 5 has not yet reached and that no analyst has committed to projecting. International ticket sales are difficult to forecast once a film’s opening momentum in any given territory cools, and Toy Story 5’s overseas haul, currently at $573.5 million, reflects uneven performance across markets still at different points in their runs. What the film earns globally will depend on variables the studio cannot control from Burbank.
No animated franchise has ever produced three separate billion-dollar installments. That record is Pixar’s now, unambiguously, regardless of what the final tally reads. Whether Toy Story 5 clears Finding Dory’s domestic record, whether it catches its predecessors globally, and whether Spider-Man: Brand New Day accelerates its weekly decline or simply reduces it to a more modest plateau are the numbers still to come. The billion itself arrived on schedule and on its own terms.
