Toy Story 5 earned $14 million in Thursday night preview screenings in North America, setting a new record for the franchise and pointing toward what industry analysts say could be one of the biggest animated opening weekends in cinema history.

The film, directed by Andrew Stanton and marking the first Toy Story feature in six years, surpassed the previous franchise preview record of $8 million set by Toy Story 4 in 2019. The $14 million figure is also the third-largest Thursday preview total ever recorded for an animated film, behind only the most recent entries in the Spider-Man animated series.

Toy Story 5 reunites Woody, Buzz, and the original gang in a story set a decade after the events of Toy Story 4, with new characters introduced alongside familiar faces. Tom Hanks and Tim Allen both return to voice their signature roles. Early critic reactions have been positive, with the film holding a 91 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes from 148 reviews published before Thursday’s preview screenings.

Industry tracking services project Toy Story 5 will open between $165 million and $185 million domestically over the four-day June 19-22 weekend, which includes the Juneteenth holiday on Friday. A four-day total above $150 million would rank it among the top ten animated openings of all time. International box office projections are similarly strong, with particularly high advance ticket sales in the United Kingdom, Australia, France, and Japan.

Disney positioned the film as its centrepiece summer release, choosing the June date specifically to capture both families at the start of summer school holidays and adult audiences who grew up with the original Toy Story in 1995. The studio invested heavily in the marketing campaign, including a tie-in with Mattel for a toy line that has been selling strongly since March.

The performance comes after a difficult stretch for Pixar, which had seen several of its original films underperform at the box office since the pandemic era. Lightyear, Turning Red, and Onward all went directly to Disney+ without theatrical runs or performed below expectations when they did receive wide releases. The success of Toy Story 5 suggested the studio’s most beloved franchise remained one of the most bankable in Hollywood.

The film opens in full Friday across approximately 4,700 locations in North America and simultaneously in 42 international markets. Pixar’s previous release, Elio, earned $31 million in its opening weekend last year, making Toy Story 5’s projected numbers a dramatic uplift for the studio.

Audience exit polls from Thursday previews gave the film an A+ CinemaScore, the highest possible rating, with families and moviegoers above 35 rating it most enthusiastically. Viewers who had seen the film at advance screenings described it as emotionally resonant and praised its balance of humor and sentiment, familiar qualities of the franchise.

Competition at the box office this weekend is limited. Inside Out 3 opened three weeks ago and is in its fourth weekend of release. The only new wide release competing with Toy Story 5 is a mid-budget thriller that opened to $6.2 million Thursday, leaving Pixar’s film essentially clear of significant competition. Disney’s stock rose 2.4 percent on Friday morning ahead of the market open, partly attributed to the strong preview figures.

Final opening weekend numbers will be reported on Monday morning. If Toy Story 5 hits the top end of projections, it would become the highest-grossing animated film of 2026 by a wide margin and one of Disney’s biggest domestic performers of the decade.