‘Toy Story 5’ follows the toy gang as they come face to face with Lilypad, a high-tech, frog-shaped smart tablet that threatens to replace traditional playtime.
disney and Pixar toy story 5 opens in theaters on Friday and takes on one of the franchise’s most topical antagonists: a child’s tablet.
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Directed by Andrew Stanton and co-directed by McKenna Harris, the action comedy film stars Tim Allen as astronaut Buzz Lightyear, Tom Hanks as a cowboy doll named Woody and Joan Cusack as cowgirl Jessie.
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Lilypad is not a villain
toy story 5 Follow the toy gang as they come face to face with Lilypad, a high-tech, frog-shaped smart tablet that threatens to replace traditional playtime. Greta Lee voices the character.
The story begins with Bonnie, the girl who now owns the toys, becoming more and more absorbed by the device. While the previous films in the franchise wrestled with kids growing old without toys, the fifth installment wrestles with whether kids still want toys.
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Stanton said Variety that Lilypad is not a villain but is perceived as a threat to the toys “because they understandably feel intimidated.”
The distinction matters in how the toys themselves experience conflict. While the toys view Lilypad as an existential threat, the device, like previous toys, simply attempts to engage Bonnie during playtime. A central theme of the film is preserving children’s imaginations in the face of increasing screen time.
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“She’s just the next phase in Bonnie’s life. She’s built like a toy in the sense that she wants to help the kid move on, but she has very different skills and zero experience, whereas Jessie has nothing but experience and probably isn’t prepared for what to do,” Stanton told the outlet.
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Harris added that the distinction was a deliberate creative choice. “A lot of people at the studio wanted her to be a villain, and it was very difficult to strike a balance because I think we all came in with very charged emotions toward the devices,” she said. Variety.
“We’re not going to get rid of these devices, no matter how hard we try. I’ll always have my phone. I’ll probably be partially addicted to it. So it seemed right that toys had to deal with that nuance.”
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Disney bets big on ‘Toy Story 5’
The film is targeting a domestic opening weekend of between $145 million and $150 million in 4,400 theaters in North America, with some industry projections putting the figure closer to $160 million to $175 million, according to IMDb.
If these estimates hold, it would exceed toy story 4 $120 million debut in 2019 and toy story 3 $110 million opening in 2010.
disney Recent animated sequels have set a strong precedent. Inside out 2 debuted with $154 million in 2024 and eventually grossed $1.6 billion worldwide, while Zootopia 2 opened to $100 million in 2025 and earned $1.8 billion globally.
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