Toy Story 5 crossed $1 billion worldwide in late July and remained the August book. [1] Variety filed the billion. [1] This paper has been carrying that print through the catch-up week. Monday has no named new global total in fetched copy. An August milestone is not a September recast.

Hadestown's open-ended run on another page is not this board. Venice's Saturday Lion is not a weekend gross. A recap is not a new opening.

Box-office milestones depreciate with repetition, and studios know it; each new billion buys less attention. What endures is the catalogue annuity Toy Story represents. August's number folded into it months ago.

Billion-dollar crossings now arrive with unusual speed for animated franchises, which makes each one less newsworthy than the last. The industry's attention has already moved to what opens next. August keeps its billion; September has its own slate.

Franchise fatigue is the industry's favorite diagnosis and rarely the right one; audiences show up for execution. Toy Story's execution needed no defense in July. August simply banked it.

August simply banked the execution. September has its own slate. Franchise fatigue is a diagnosis audiences already disproved in July.

July's crossing still sits in August's ledger, where Variety put it. Studios already spent the attention that one billion can buy. The franchise now pays as catalogue, which needs no second trumpet. This page will not recast July as a September opening.
Catalogue needs no second trumpet. September has its own slate. July stays in August's ledger.

Catalogue needs no second trumpet. September has its own slate. July stays in August's ledger.

-- CAMILLE BEAUMONT, Los Angeles