Toy Story 5 Just Smashed Every Box Office Record — And Everyone Still Has a Problem With It

Pixar’s Toy Story 5 opened to $160 million domestically this weekend, the biggest debut of 2026 and the largest in the franchise’s 31-year history, surpassing Toy Story 4’s $120 million opening in 2019. Globally, the film earned $312 million in its opening frame, the second-largest launch in Pixar history behind only The Incredibles 2 ($182.6 million), and overtook the year’s previous record-holder, the Super Mario Galaxy Movie, which had opened to $131.7 million earlier in 2026 [1, 2]. AMC Theatres reported its busiest U.S. weekend of 2026 coinciding with the debut, with 11.5 million theatergoers visiting domestic AMC locations and the chain logging its highest attendance, food and beverage revenue, and box office revenue of the year to date [3]. The film holds a 94% Certified Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and earned an A CinemaScore from opening-weekend audiences [1]. Weeks before release, however, Pixar and rapper Bad Bunny — who voices a new toy character named “Pizza with Sunglasses” — faced public plagiarism allegations from fans who noted the character’s close resemblance to Pizza Steve from Cartoon Network’s Uncle Grandpa, a character that has been part of children’s pop culture for over a decade [4].

Why It Sucks:

Franchise Fans

• Every ending Disney sells is a lie. Toy Story 4 closed with Woody walking away from his friends — a goodbye designed to feel permanent. Reopening the franchise tells audiences that no emotional payoff is ever real when Disney’s balance sheet needs one more entry, and that undercuts every future conclusion Pixar tries to sell [1, 2].
• Bad Bunny’s character looks directly lifted from Cartoon Network. “Pizza with Sunglasses” — a shades-wearing slice of pizza voiced by Bad Bunny — is widely seen by fans online as a direct copy of Pizza Steve from Uncle Grandpa. Whether intentional or not, the allegation that Pixar’s creative team built a marquee new character around a pre-existing one is an embarrassing cloud hanging over an otherwise celebrated release [4].
• Woody and Buzz may be losing their own franchise. Pre-release concern centered on the original characters being increasingly sidelined by rotating new additions designed to refresh merchandise lines and keep marketing campaigns fresh. If the biggest promotional push is Bad Bunny and a new toy, franchise fans are right to ask what is actually left of the story they grew up with [2].

Film Critics and Cinephiles

• The reviews are good — and that’s exactly the problem. Toy Story 5 earned strong notices, but the language critics reached for tells the story: “better than expected,” “doesn’t embarrass the legacy,” “surprisingly affecting.” Those are the words you use when a sequel clears a low bar, not when a film justifies its own existence [1, 2].
• “IP exhaustion has set in.” The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw used that phrase in his review, and it captures what critics across outlets are circling: the studio that made Wall-E, Up, and Inside Out is now a sequel engine recycling characters from the 1990s. Rolling Stone’s David Fear questioned whether the film has any artistic reason to exist beyond keeping stockholders satisfied [5].
• Record box office makes original films harder to greenlight, not easier. When a fifth installment in a 31-year-old franchise earns $312 million globally in a single weekend, it confirms for every studio executive that original ideas are a financial risk not worth underwriting. Cinephiles watching this weekend’s numbers aren’t celebrating a cultural moment — they’re watching Pixar’s legacy get monetized to exhaustion [1, 5].

Theater Exhibitors

• This one film is keeping the entire industry afloat. AMC’s busiest weekend of 2026 happened solely because Toy Story 5 exists — 11.5 million people showed up [3]. That number is theater chains’ entire argument against the “cinemas are dying” narrative, but it also reveals how catastrophically dependent the exhibition business has become on Disney franchise drops to fill seats.
• The business model only works until Disney stumbles. The gap in attendance between a Toy Story 5 weekend and a typical mid-June weekend is enormous. Exhibitors who restructured their operations around event-film traffic after the pandemic have no fallback if Disney’s franchise pipeline ever pauses, misfires, or goes directly to streaming. That is not a sustainable model — it is a structural dependency [3].
• One film devours every auditorium, locking everyone else out. A $160 million opening requires wall-to-wall scheduling across multiplex chains. Toy Story 5 occupied the overwhelming majority of screens this weekend, meaning smaller films — including original releases — were either bumped entirely or confined to off-peak slots. For independent distributors, a weekend like this is effectively a blackout [2, 3].

Sources & Citations:

[1] Variety: Box Office: ‘Toy Story 5’ Scores Year’s Biggest Debut With $160 Million, Shattering Franchise Opening Weekend Record
[2] The Hollywood Reporter: ‘Toy Story 5’ Headed to $160M Biggest Opening of 2026
[3] AMC Entertainment Holdings: AMC Theatres Enjoys Its Busiest Weekend of 2026 as Toy Story 5 Debuts With the Biggest Opening Weekend Box Office of the Year
[4] Inside the Magic: Pixar and Bad Bunny Accused of “Blatant Plagiarism” in ‘Toy Story 5’
[5] World of Reel: ‘Toy Story 5’ Is Yet Another Unnecessary Pixar Sequel