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One of the best animated movie franchises officially returns this week, as a new entry is debuting in theaters after a long break. By appealing to kids and families, Hollywood has consistently turned to animated films to find massive hits. The biggest of them often become multi-part adventures that studios bring back every few years, so long as audiences remain interested.
DreamWorks has been active in giving audiences new installments of Shrek, Kung Fu Panda, and How to Train Your Dragon in recent years. Illumination is still mining the lucrative Despicable Me series for all its worth, while the partnership with Nintendo to make the Super Mario movies is just beginning. Sony’s Spider-Verse films have been instant classics and still are not over, either.
Disney has a lot of success, too. Frozen, Moana, and The Lion King have all had new entries of some kind in the last decade. After acquiring Pixar, Disney has ensured franchises like Toy Story, Cars, Finding Nemo, and The Incredibles return, in addition to launching new ones like Inside Out.
Now, Disney and Pixar are bringing back the iconic toy-based franchise this week, as Toy Story 5 officially hits theaters on Friday, June 19. Featuring Woody, Buzz Lightyear, Jessie, and all the other characters audiences have to come to know and love, it’s a long-awaited and highly praised return for the beloved series.
While Disney and Pixar have brought back a few franchises in recent years, Toy Story has been on the shelf since 2019. That’s when Toy Story 4 came out and looked to be the last time the audiences would ever see Woody and Buzz in theaters. But after the $1 billion success of the film and the struggles with other Pixar films, Toy Story 5 was announced in 2023 and given a 2026 release date a year later.
Waiting seven years between sequels is not normal for Hollywood, but it is on the shorter side for Pixar. It’s the second-shortest gap for the Toy Story movies, coming in under the 11 years between Toy Story 2 and Toy Story 3 and the nine years between the third and fourth entries. Only the Cars sequels and Toy Story 2 have had shorter gaps than Toy Story 5.
Fans have had a chance to experience more of this toy-focused world since 2019, just not with the main series. Disney+ delivered the Forky Asks a Question shorts in 2019, a Bo Peep short called Lamp Life in 2020, and several Toy Story-related shorts through Pixar Popcorn in 2021. There was also the Lightyear movie in 2022, which exists outside the main franchise, making Toy Story 5 a proper return for the cinematic toy series.
After waiting so long for another adventure with Woody, Buzz, and Jessie, questions circulated immediately after the sequel was announced about whether it could live up to the insanely high standard put forth by Pixar with the previous four films. Thankfully, all indications are that Toy Story’s return delivers.
Disney and Pixar have already lifted the social media embargo for the movie, and Toy Story 5’s first reactions were nothing but positive. Among the various posts, Daniel Baptiste called the Toy Story sequel a “masterful must-see movie” while also describing it as “generation-defining,” “meaningful,” and “moving.”
Those words are exactly what Disney and Pixar hoped to hear when Toy Story 5 was announced. After some trepidation among fans about the film’s ability to justify why it was made and undo Woody and Buzz’s goodbye from Toy Story 4, the animation, Jessie-centric story, and commentary on our use of technologies have made the latest installment of this beloved franchise another classic.
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