‘Toy Story 5’ teaser pits Woody and Buzz against — gasp! — a tablet

Why hello there, Popculturology readers. Welcome to the Friday newsletter. It feels like a ton has happened over the past week, including the release of no less than 100 new movie trailers. (I might be overcounting a bit.)

You know what there actually are 100 of now, though? Editions of Snackology, my newsletter focused on fun new and returning releasing in the world of candy, fast food and soda. If you’re not already a Snackology subscriber, check it out and add it to your coverage from The Omnicosm. (You know you want reviews of Kraft Mac & Cheese Apple Pie Flavor and Mountain Dew Baja Blast Pie.)

“Fit check for my napalm era”

Hey, have you all heard about this KPop Demon Hunters movie?

Oh, it’s a cultural phenomenon that I somehow only watched last weekend? My bad.

After the KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack became the go-to music when my daughter and I are driving together (thanks to a house playing “Golden” while we were trick-or-treating), I finally watched the breakout animated hit. Count me as a fan now. (Is it OK to say that “How It’s Done” is the film’s best song?)

Netflix and Sony obviously weren’t ready for KPop Demon Hunters’ wild level of success, with toys and merch only being announced in the past few weeks. (Do I need a Derpy Tiger Funko Pop? Will Funko even still be in business by the time these toy are supposed to be released?)

• Biffed the BAFTAs: Thanks to KPop Demon Hunters hitting Netflix before the film got a theatrical release in the UK, it won’t be eligible for the BAFTA Film Awards. Don’t worry, though, it still has Oscar eligibility. (Deadline)

Maybe my expectations were the real monster

We also watched Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein last weekend, and it pains me to admit that I was underwhelmed by it. I dunno, I think all the hype over it being an accurate adaptation of Mary Shelley’s novel — which, pushes glasses up, I read earlier this year after pretending to read it in high school — got my expectations up.

• 🍿 “Let us both be damned”: Speaking of Jacob Elordi, there’s a new trailer out for Emerald Fennell’s adaptation of Wuthering Heights. I’m just now learning that the main characters played by Elordi and Margot Robbie are named Healthcliff and Cathy ... the titles of two iconic newspaper comic strips. (Warner Bros.)
• 📖 The Modern Prometheus, Refracted (Laura Miller, Slate): “The image of Victor in a storm-battered castle, his gothic laboratory offered up to the sky in exchange for its life-giving lightning, is entirely derived from Whale’s movie. Any adaptation truly faithful to Shelley’s novel would be obliged to acknowledge that the original Victor made his creature in an apartment building, using chemistry rather than electricity, although Shelley is pretty vague about the process.”

BOOK NOOK

Here’s what I’ve been reading this week …

• The Great Work (Sheldon Costa)
• Saga Vol. 12 (Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples)

I picked up The Great Work after seeing it mentioned in a few lists of new/upcoming books and wound up being super impressed by Sheldon Costa’s debut novel.

I also gotta mention that friend of the newsletter Brian Jay Jones — the author behind biographies of Jim Henson, George Lucas and Dr. Seuss — revealed the cover for The Capitol, his next book, on Thursday.

“The Capitol is a unique biography of a place, encompassing architecture, history, politics, popular culture, and race in a fascinating exploration of our Capitol’s secret history; a history rife with political intrigue, assassination attempts, thwarted bombings, and gunmen on the run,” Jones wrote on social media.

I’ve already preordered my copy of The Capitol. While you wait for it to publish on June 2, 2026, you have plenty of time to read my chat with Jones from a few years ago where we did a deep dive on A Muppet Family Christmas.

NEWS, NOTES & TRAILERS

🍿 Toy Story 5 unboxes a new threat

Despite Toy Story 3 being the perfect ending to the Toy Story trilogy, Pixar wound up reopening the series with Toy Story 4. And despite Toy Story 4 being a pretty decent ending to the Toy Story series (and giving the world Forky), Pixar is working on Toy Story 5.

I get it. Toy Story 4 grossed $1.071 billion worldwide. Disney and Pixar are never going to stop making these movies now, and we got our first teaser for Toy Story 5 this week.

So that shot of Buzz and Woody together in this teaser? I don’t think it exists in the movie. I think Pixar plugged it in there to get the franchise’s two most iconic characters in the same frame.

My theory is that when Lilypad shows up, Buzz and Jessie need to go off and find Woody to help them face the threat of this tablet. (Check out the photo above and notice that it’s just Buzz, Jessie and Bullseye on the ground behind Lilypad.) Woody’s a wandering toy now, and he’s going to have to get pulled back in one last time. (Until Toy Story 6, that is.)