‘Toy Story 4’ is 5th Disney film to top $1 billion in 2019

Disney continues to break records at the box office. The company announced Thursday that “Toy Story 4” surpassed the $1 billion mark on Wednesday, becoming the fifth movie from the studio to do so this year.

The fourth installment in the “Toy Story” franchise is the fourth Pixar film to reach $1 billion and is now the eighth highest-grossing animated movie of all time.

The film opened in June with $118 million in ticket sales, the highest debut of any “Toy Story” film.

So far, four other Disney films have passed $1 billion this year: “Captain Marvel,” “Aladdin,” “The Lion King” and “Avengers: Endgame.”

“It’s hard to call it surprising at this point because we’ve long expected this to be the crowning year of Disney’s theatrical buildup, but that doesn’t make it any less impressive,” said Shawn Robbins, chief analyst at BoxOffice.com. “When all’s said and done, counting ‘Rise of Skywalker’ and ‘Frozen II,’ they’ll probably have seven films from 2019 reach that milestone.”

“It’s an unprecedented achievement that speaks to how well Disney has understood and embraced its expansive audience in recent years,” he said.

Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore, said, “Disney has unprecedented brand horsepower with Pixar, LucasFilm, Marvel and the other Disney film divisions bringing to bear a slate of films that in 2019 has proven to be unstoppable at multiplexes around the world.”

In total, Disney has made nearly $8 billion at the global box office this year, setting a record for the highest-grossing year for a studio ever — and it’s not even September yet.