This weekend Toy Story 5 opened in theatres around the world to a mind-blowing $312 million internationally. The long awaited continuation of the Toy Story franchise broke a number of box office records, and the $160 million it made just in the U.S. and Canada alone earned it the title of the biggest domestic box office debut so far in 2026.
The first Toy Story movie came out in 1995 (for comparison, it made $401 million during its full run in theaters around the world, just $89 million more than Toy Story 5 made in its first three days). Since then, the franchise has created four more Toy Story movies (1999, 2010, 2019, 2026), a Buzz Lightyear spinoff movie (Lightyear, 2022), and a number of TV shows, holiday episodes and short films like ‘Toy Story Treats’ (1996-2000) and ‘Forky Asks A Question’ (2019-2020).
The franchise has done its best to keep each movie relevant to the times and allow characters to grow up with the kids watching them. In the original Toy Story, the main boy Andy was six years old. In Toy Story 3, released in 2010, Andy has grown up and is leaving for college. The film ends with him passing the toys down to a toddler named Bonnie, allowing a new generation of children to grow up with the same beloved characters.
In this latest film, Disney’s creative team decided to tackle the issue of the influence of technology on young children and how iPads, tablets and other screen devices have begun to make what used to be the “traditional” ways of playing, such as with dolls, boardgames, and even outdated technology, obsolete. The same toys that have been in the previous films, including Jessie (Joan Cusack), Woody (Tom Hanks), and Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) are forced to face up against new electronics like Lilypad (Greta Lee), a frog shaped tablet who believes the best way for Bonnie to make friends is digitally.
The film tackles topics like cyber-bullying, social media, and internet safety through the connections and relationships Bonnie forms through Lilypad. Like many of the other Toy Story films before this one, it’s been described as “emotional terrorism”, especially for the adults who have grown up with the franchise and can deeply connect to the concepts of love and loss that are explored throughout the movie (credit to USA Today’s Patrick Ryan who wrote an amazing review of the movie – link at the end).
While so far the Toy Story movies have been directed at kids, with their messages created to easily resonate with younger audiences, this latest film seems to be a bit of a shift. It’s the first of the franchise to be rated PG instead of G due to an excess of potty humor and more mature themes that are interlaced throughout the story that may not connect as well with young children. A number of parents online have said this latest film feels like it was meant for the original Toy Story generation who now are raising their own children. Others have said their children lost interest in the movie while watching, which could also be another example of how recent increase in use of technology in younger and younger children has lowered attention spans to the point that they are no longer able to sit long enough to watch a movie made specifically for them – to quote Alanis Morissette (and to use it correctly this time), “isn’t it ironic?”
If the box office stats are anything to go off of, Toy Story 5 will likely be one of the top movies of the summer, if not all of 2026, and is definitely a film to see in theaters. The fact that it’s geared towards audiences of all ages makes it the perfect date night, get-out-of-the-house, or just looking-for-something-fun activity!
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