Pixar’s upcoming Toy Story film will bring back a lovable ensemble characters and wrap up the long-running franchise with an emotional conclusion. Wait… is Toy Story 4 the Avengers: Endgame of animation? Signs point to yes (box-office wise anyway). The movie recently broke some records for the best first day pre-sale tickets for an animated movie ever. Woody and friends will not be collecting dust this summer, that’s for sure.
When Toy Story 4 pre-sale tickets went on sale on Tuesday, Fandango reported that movie outpaced the current record-holder: 2018’s Incredibles 2, which became the highest-grossing animated movie of all time during the same weekend last summer. What's more, the upcoming sequel also broke the same records for Fandango's competitor Atom.
The Pixar’s superhero sequel earned $182 million during its 3-day weekend opening and went on to make $608 million domestically and $1.2 billion worldwide. Toy Story 4 may now be on track to beat out these numbers, perhaps scoring a potential $200 million during opening weekend. This would place the flick well over last month’s tracking of $105 to $130 million previously predicted.
Toy Story 4 also brought in higher presale figures than 2016’s Finding Dory, the live-action Beauty and the Beast and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 on Fandango. And the Toy Story sequel also sold nearly 50% more tickets on Atom than the site’s top 3 animated titles combined (Incredibles 2, Ralph Breaks the Internet and Hotel Transylvania) in a 24-hour period.
If Toy Story 4 delivers on these expectations, it will easily be the most successful opening weekend for the franchise. It has been nine years since Andy’s toys graced the big screen. 2010’s third installment made $110 million during its debut and over $1 billion worldwide by the end of its run. It was 2010’s biggest movie of the year. NowToy Story 4 likely won’t top Endgame opening weekend but it has a strong chance to become the second best opening of 2019 since the MCU culmination.
Depending on how popular Frozen II fares in earnings later this year, Toy Story 4 could also become the highest-grossing animated film of the year. The first Frozen didn’t earn a huge first weekend, but became popular on the big screen as world of mouth caught on. This lead to a $1.2 million global gross, making it the most-successful animated worldwide release. On the domestic front, Toy Story 3 beat out Frozen by just $15 million, so it could be a close race to the top.
After Pixar has offered up a dizzying amount of sequels in recent years, it’s been said the studio will soon be going back to making original animated films after Toy Story 4, starting with Onward coming in 2020.
Toy Story 4 comes to theaters on June 21 and will see the return of classic characters such as Tom Hank’s Woody and a handful of new one’s such as Tony Hale’s Forky and Keanu Reeves’ Duke Caboom.
