To infinity and the box office! ‘Toy Story 5’ smashes franchise record

LOS ANGELES, June 21 — Disney’s Toy Story 5 romped to the best opening weekend of the year, raking in US$160 million (RM660 million) in North America, industry estimates showed yesterday, a record for the much-loved Pixar franchise.

The sequel, which debuted over Father’s Day weekend, features Woody the cowboy, Buzz Lightyear and their gang of toys fighting for survival against competition from technology, particularly a tablet.

“This is prime family moviegoing season and Toy Story is delivering,” said industry analyst David A. Gross.

Gross called it “another sensational opening for a Pixar series sequel,” noting that Toy Story 5 had the best starting weekend for any film in the franchise, an estimated 37 per cent higher than Toy Story 4.

That will likely make it the second-biggest animated movie opening of all time, behind Disney unit Pixar’s Incredibles 2, which made US$182.7 million in June 2018, he said.

“Family moviegoing has been leading the industry since it came roaring back from the pandemic in 2023,” Gross added. “A lot of the genre’s success is coming from sequels, live-action remakes of animation pictures, and hybrid combinations.”

Toy Story 5 — which returns with Tom Hanks, Tim Allen and Joan Cusack voicing key characters — opened on 4,425 screens across the United States and Canada over the weekend, Exhibitor Relations’ estimates showed.

Runner-up in the weekend box office take was the Stephen Spielberg-directed sci-fi thriller Disclosure Day, which debuted the previous weekend.

With an ensemble cast led by Emily Blunt and Josh O’Connor, the action-packed Universal film follows an effort to reveal a decades-long coverup of extraterrestrial visitations.

It brought in an estimated US$17 million, lifting its total to US$78.2 million, according to estimates.

In third place was Focus Features’ indie horror hit Obsession, which took in another US$14 million in its sixth week out for a total domestic haul of US$215.8 million, data showed.

A24’s horror film Backrooms remained in fourth place with US$7.3 million, taking its domestic total to US$175 million in its fourth week out.

Coming in fifth was Paramount’s Scary Movie, a reboot of the parody franchise, earning US$6.7 million in its third week out.

Rounding out the top 10 were:

Masters of the Universe (US$5.6 million)

Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu (US$3.9 million)

Leviticus (debuted at US$2.7 million)

The Death of Robin Hood (debuted US$2.6 million)

Michael (US$2.2 million) — AFP