Pity the poor schmendriks at Disney who have been having to endure criticism and even some ridicule for how much of a misfire this summer has been so far (yes, I know today’s the official solstice but in the movie world that calendar moves up by roughly two months). THE MANDOLORIAN AND GROGU has officially advanced to the verdict of “flop”, not only because of its lackluster box office take but also its seemingly permanent damage to the struggling STAR WARS IP and how in the wake of such continuing overachievement of what seems like any Gen Z-fronted movie with a YouTube pedigree it seemed like Disney had been left back in the 20th century. Much like the toys in one’s attic–or the electronic version of it we call Ebay.
Hence the news that DEADLINE’s Anthony D’Alessandro dropped yesterday was even more welcome and needed than usual for pretty much all parties involved:
It’s an understatement to say that Disney/Pixar’s Toy Story 5 is off to a great global start at the box office. With $129.3M so far, the Andrew Stanton directed movie is bound to beat its worldwide opening forecast of $275M. Broken out that’s $71M domestic for Toy Story 5, which as we told you was the second best Friday ever for an animated movie behind Incredibles 2‘s $71.2M, with another $58.3M currently from offshore. Stateside outlook has risen to $160M-$170M (past its earlier week $140M projection). Note, the best global opening ever for a Pixar movie in like-for-likes belongs to Inside Out 2 with $384M WW ($230 Int’l, $154M domestic).
Making money is one thing, and certainly Job One, but as FORBES’ Paul Tassi practically exclaimed the qualitative verdict is even more impressive:
It’s been seven years since Toy Story 4, and clearly, there’s still a huge appetite for the adventures of Woody and Buzz, though in 5’s case, mostly Jesse. Now, Toy Story 5 has actually set an audience score record on Rotten Tomatoes in franchise history.
As it stands, despite being the lowest critic-scored entry in the franchise (though still high, in relative terms), Toy Story 5 is now the highest audience-scored film of the series. Here are the numbers:
- Toy Story 5 – 95% audience score 94% critic score
- Toy Story 4 – 94% audience score, 97% critic score
- Toy Story 3 – 90% audience score, 98% critic score
- Toy Story – 92% audience score, 100% critic score
- Toy Story 2 – 87% audience score, 100% critic score
When one digs into the details, it’s hard to find fault with anything that went into this attempt to breathe new life into a franchise that had seemed to become stagnant. For as adorable and as multi-generational in appeal as Woody and Buzz et al are the fact is their storylines had became predictable and repetitive. But by taking a clearly girl-centric focus this time around–not to mention a somewhat bite-the-hand-that-feeds you approach with the theme–the fifth installment seems to have righted the ship. BOSTON. com’s Kevin Slane and I are sympatico with our rationales as to why:
If there’s a star of “Toy Story 5,” it’s not Woody (Tom Hanks) or Buzz (Tim Allen): It’s Jessie (Joan Cusack), the cowgirl whose story of losing touch with her first owner as she aged into adolescence in “Toy Story 2” was the first of many tear-jerking vignettes in the Pixar canon. Wonderfully creative while alone in her bedroom, Bonnie isn’t quite as outgoing when it comes to playing with other kids. Seeking to give their child a connection point with her classmates, Bonnie’s parents buy her a Lilypad, an kid-friendly (but still unsettlingly powerful) tablet akin to the real-life LeapFrog devices.
Lily’s takeover of Bonnie’s life stings Jessie the most. Even if she was prepared to eventually lose Bonnie to other age-appropriate interests, eight years old is too young to give up playing with toys, in her eyes. And so begins a harrowing adventure, in which Jessie and Lily battle for their child’s soul en route to a sleepover, leaving Jessie and Bullseye on the outside (literally) looking in. By wading into new territory with its treatise on screens, “Toy Story 5” is already miles ahead of “Toy Story 4,” which was content to mostly repeat the story beats of the original while introducing enough new characters to sell more Disney merch. But “Toy Story 5” treats our digital reality with nuance.
And as ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY’s Sharareh Drury noted in her compendium of reviews that dropped late last week, even the more cerebral and typical distanced carpers were taken and touched with the messaging:
David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter lauds the film’s choice to spotlight cowgirl Jessie, voiced by “national treasure” Joan Cusack, whose bond with Bonnie could be a significant factor in reminding her, and all kids, why imaginative play is so important. The struggle is very real, according to Rooney, as Tom Hanks’ Woody says at one point in the film, “Toys are for play. Tech is everything.” Rooney gives the film an overall thumbs-up, finding that it works “because it has heart and conviction in the belief that tech toys are not innately bad. They can also serve to bring joy,” while adding that the film emphasizes overall “the point that children need physical interaction and communication with other kids to help them develop and grow.”
Variety film critic Owen Gleiberman points out that across 30 years of Toy Story films, a recurring theme has been “the notion of loss…the sadness of it, but also 
the inevitability of it,” adding that the toys “almost feel like parents now, watching their children go off into the world.” With the introduction of Lilypad, a new theme arises — “the disappearance of play” — both for the toys and for Bonnie, who is having trouble making friends as other kids don’t play with toys anymore, and instead are stuck to screens.
And since the timing of this release on Father’s Day weekend has me looking back on my own childhood I recall how my dad made an attempt to make me way more tactile than he was with a long-forgotten but apparently well-established brand known as Tinkertoys. The Strong Museum of Play, the future home of my longest-tenured friend’s garage contents, provides some background for why he thought I might have had interest in them.
Stonemason Charles Pajeau and partner Robert Petit dreamed up the “Thousand Wonder Toy” in the early 1910s after watching children create endless abstract shapes with sticks, pencils, and old spools of thread. Adding holes on all sides of a round wooden wheel sized for sticks included in the set, they named their creation Tinkertoy. Shop owners successfully promoted the toy with elaborate store displays. Tinkertoy joined a host of other construction toys in the early 20th century, including Lincoln Logs and Erector Sets, helping kids to learn by exercising what we now think of as “spatial intelligence”…The postwar boom years of the 1950s finally brought color to the classic wooden toy.
Dad did his best to encourage me to play with what he thought was a great gift, even dubbing me his “Big Tinker Boy” at practically every cousin’s club klatsch. I kinda squirmed at that punning reference, probably driving me more toward TV as a result. Ironic, of course, but in hindsight was arguably a kickstart to my career.
No more ironic than the fact that a work that eschews adoption of digital devices that has already gotten such widespread success will ultimately wind up as a tentpole for Disney Plus and will be played for decades to come on many of those “evil” screens by the kids who are embracing it now and likely will, as their parents and loved ones are want to do, direct their offspring to it as a babysitter and/or sedative on whatever contraption might emerge down the road. At that point–perhaps sooner if they can bring down the price point–that might occur on an Apple Vision Pro, for which Disney Plus is a charter content partner. Throw in the fact that TOY STORY 5 has a Taylor Swift song in its soundtrack, and I have a sense that might inspire those future parents in the same manner that my dad was when he brought home a can of Tinkertoys for his son. Especially if they’re among the apparent many that will be spending this Father’s Day weekend as so many apparently are–in an old-school theatre with a franchise now more than 30 years old.
Savor the experience if you are among those who still have a dad–or a mom, for that matter–who you can share it with. And try and be a little more forgiving to them if they bestow you with a cringy nickname than I was.
Until next time…