Toy Story 5 lands $171M, the second-best animated opening ever, and the weekend won’t cool off

Toy Story 5 just delivered a headline number big enough to change how everyone in Hollywood’s planning room talks about weekends: $171 million for the Fri-Sun opening, the biggest box office weekend of the year so far, and the biggest franchise opening of the year. It is also the second-best opening ever for an animated film, trailing only Incredibles 2’s $183.6 million. That kind of debut does not just make noise. It resets expectations for what “family” can earn when multiple seasonal levers line up.

Why that $171 million matters right now: it helped power 2026’s first $200 million three-day weekend. Rotten Tomatoes’ box office rundown calls out that Easter and Memorial Day holidays contributed, but this is specifically the first Fri-Sun tally since Lilo & Stitch and Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning managed to post similar three-day totals without the actual holiday. So yes, it is a holiday-influenced environment. But the relevant point for executives is that Toy Story 5 is not relying on a full holiday cushion to hit peak momentum.

Now zoom in on how rare this is. The source traces Toy Story’s long arc: the original premiered on Nov. 22, 1995 to $29.1 million, third-best for an animated film behind The Lion King ($40.8 million) and Pocahontas ($29.5 million). Toy Story 2 later set the franchise bar with a $57.3 million opening, the top animated opening ever at the time. Toy Story 3’s $110.3 million start ranked second behind Shrek the Third’s $121.6 million. Toy Story 4’s 2019 debut of $120.9 million ranked fourth behind Incredibles 2 ($182.6 million), Finding Dory ($135.0 million), and just behind Shrek the Third.

That history is why the weekend number has teeth. With Toy Story 5’s $171 million opening, it becomes second-best animated ever and ranks as the 24th-best opening of all time. The source also notes the film should climb further: the writer expects it to be well over $300 million by the end of next weekend. Importantly, that “milestone part four couldn’t achieve until weekend three” comparison implies a faster pay-in than Toy Story 4, which can matter to studios, distributors, exhibitors, and advertisers who plan around cumulative thresholds.

The other driver is the runway problem, meaning: can you keep pulling in the “family dollar” when the next wave arrives? Toy Story 5’s advantage is not only performance, it is also quality signals. The source says TS5 aligns with the critic scores of the previous four at a Certified Fresh 94% (and a Verified Hot 95% on the Popcornmeter). It also says the first two films continue to rock 100% scores, with the third at 98% and the fourth at 97%. On Cinemascore, TS5 is described as receiving another A Cinemascore for the franchise, and Toy Story 2 is listed as one of 17 animated films to receive an A+.

But the market is about timing. The source argues Incredibles 2 had a different competitive structure: it had a four-weekend runway until challenged by another family film in Hotel Transylvania 3, while the only other animated release that summer was Teen Titans GO! To The Movies, which grossed $29.7 million (roughly $600,000 more than Toy Story’s opening in 1995). Toy Story 5, by contrast, is headed into a more crowded stretch. Less than two weeks after now, Illumination’s Minions & Monsters opens. Less than 10 days after that, Disney’s live-action Moana arrives, aiming to replicate the Lilo & Stitch-style numbers from last summer. Inside Out 2 faced Despicable Me 4 two and a half weeks after its opening, but the source says there were no other new major family releases after that.

So the second-order watch is not just “can it open,” it is “can it protect share.” The source offers additional datapoints executives can use to benchmark hold: TS5 has already generated over $312 million across the world and “should have no problem joining the billion-dollar club.” The franchise, not counting Lightyear, has now grossed over $3 billion globally. Meanwhile, the text positions Incredibles 2 as having opened June 15, 2018 during the World Cup and ending with $608.5 million, the eighth-highest ever at the time, and notes Inside Out 2 has grossed over $652 million and sits ninth all time. For planning, that is effectively a reminder that the ceiling is not only about opening weekend size. It is also about how long you can stay the default choice while competitors cycle in.

The same box office report turns immediately to the other side of the ledger: what happens when scale collides with weak demand. It says Rotten Returns: He-Man has failed to master this universe. Forbes had described Masters of the Universe as “set for sequel” despite no evidence of a greenlight commitment, and the source says the current numbers make that optimism hard to defend. Three weekends in, the film is down to $5.6 million. That is $56.9 million in 17 days of release, and it has only just cracked $100 million worldwide. The reported budget is low as $170 million and as high as $200 million. Excluding pandemic releases like Wonder Woman 1984, The Suicide Squad, and The Matrix Resurrections, it suggests Masters may end up in a very small list of movies that cost as much and did not even hit $200 million globally, naming Red One, Jack the Giant Slayer, Jupiter Ascending, Evan Almighty, 47 Ronin, Killers of the Flower Moon, and Hugo. It even goes further: if He-Man fails to reach $150 million, it will join another smaller list that includes Napoleon, Argylle, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, and Tron: Ares.

Why mix these two stories in the same briefing? Because they underline a single board-level truth: theatrical performance is not a one-dimensional “did it open?” question. Toy Story 5’s $171 million opening, Certified Fresh 94% tone, and expected push toward $300 million next weekend are setting up a path that depends on hold during a high-competition window with Minions & Monsters and Moana. Masters of the Universe is the mirror image: a big-budget toy adaptation that, per the source, is now stuck far below the global thresholds where studios typically feel safe. If you are a studio executive, investor, or distributor, the actionable lens is clear. One film shows how quickly momentum can compound when quality and timing line up. The other shows how expensive failure is when the market does not reward the opening.