There may be no more universally loved movie franchise than the Toy Story films. The three previous entries are some of Pixar's most successful, and best reviewed, movies, among a slate of films that are some of the most beloved animated movies ever made. There's little question that this weekend's Toy Story 4 is going to be a big movie, but current box office projections indicate the movie could actually be even bigger than we thought, with an opening weekend that could top $160 million in North America..
Estimates a couple months back were pegging Toy Story 4 at around $130 million domestically, which was a perfectly impressive number on it's own. It would have still exceeded Toy Story 3's opening of $110 million by a decent margin. Now, however, Deadline, is reporting that the actual domestic number could be somewhere between $160 and $200 million, as part of a global opening that could see the movie land somewhere between $260 and $300 million.
There was never any question that Toy Story 4 was going to be a big movie. However, the last few weekends have actually been a little on the slow side with movies like Men in Black International, Secret Life of Pets 2 and Godzilla: King of the Monsters all underperforming to one degree or another. This fact has led some to conclude that audiences have begun to take issues with sequels and franchises, but clearly that's not the case as Toy Story 4 is about to go nuts.
It does seem that audiences might be chomping at the bit to spend some money at the movies and there's now a film opening that enough people are excited about that everybody will be there opening weekend. Whatever the reason that these other movies haven't excited audiences, this one certainly does. It also has the added benefit of appealing to a mass audience, meaning entire families will be buying tickets to this one.
If Toy Story 4 really does see a $300 million global opening it will very nearly surpass the box office total of the original film in a single weekend. Toy Story 3 more than doubled the global box office of the second film when it broke the $1 billion mark, a feat that seems quite likely the new movie will be able to repeat based on these estimates.
It's also likely to be smooth sailing for Toy Story 4 to rake in the box office dollars for the next couple weeks. Toy Story 4 is opening against the Child's Play remake with Annabelle Comes Home following after that. A pair of horror movies are certainly not going after the same audience as Toy Story 4 despite the marketing attempts of Child's Play.
We can likely expect Toy Story 4 to rule the box office until Spider-Man: Far From Home arrives in theaters over the July 4th weekend.
