‘Toy Story 5’ follows the toy gang as they battle Lilypad, a high-tech, frog-shaped smart tablet that threatens to replace traditional playtime.
Disney And Pixars Toy story 5 opens in theaters Friday and takes on one of the franchise’s most topical antagonists yet: a child’s tablet.
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Directed by Andrew Stanton and co-directed by McKenna Harris, the action comedy stars Tim Allen as spaceman Buzz Lightyear, Tom Hanks as a pull-string cowboy doll named Woody, and Joan Cusack as cowgirl Jessie.
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Lilypad is not a bad guy
Toy story 5 follows the toy gang as they battle Lilypad, a high-tech, frog-shaped smart tablet that threatens to replace traditional playtime. Greta Lee voices the character.
The story continues with Bonnie, the child who now owns the toy, becoming increasingly preoccupied with the device. While previous films in the franchise grappled with children growing older without toys, the fifth installment grapples with whether children want toys at all.
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Stanton told it Variety that Lilypad is not a villain, but is seen as a threat to toys “because they are understandably intimidated.”
The distinction is important for how the toy itself experiences the conflict. While the toy views Lilypad as an existential threat, the device, like the toys before it, is simply trying to engage Bonnie in play. A central theme of the film is maintaining children’s imagination in the face of growing screen time.
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“She’s just the next phase of Bonnie’s life. She’s built like a toy in the sense that she wants to help the child move forward, but she has very different skills and zero experience, while Jessie has nothing but experience and probably isn’t prepared for what she has to do,” Stanton told the outlet.
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Harris added that the distinction was a conscious creative choice. “A lot of people at the studio wanted her to be a villain, and it was so hard to find the balance because I think we all come to devices with such charged emotions,” she shared. Variety.
“We’re not getting rid of these devices no matter how hard we try. I’m always going to have my phone with me. I’ll probably become partially addicted to it. So it felt good that the toy had to grapple with that nuance.”
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Disney is betting big on ‘Toy Story 5’
The film is targeting a domestic opening weekend of $145 million to $150 million from 4,400 North American theaters, with some industry projections putting that figure closer to $160 million to $175 million, according to IMDb.
If these estimates hold, they would exceed the figures Toy Story 4s $ 120 million debut in 2019 and Toy Story 3 series Opening to $110 million in 2010.
Disneys recent animated sequels have set a strong precedent. Inside out 2 debuted in 2024 at $154 million and eventually grossed $1.6 billion worldwide Zootopia 2 opened to $100 million in 2025 and earned $1.8 billion worldwide.
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