Animation is Making Serious Bank Today. Almost No Matter What

The data behind the genre's sudden overperformance, how to win and why live-action family can't compare

(Photo illustration by The Ankler)

Walking through a movie theater lobby two weeks ago, two movie posters caught my eye:

As a parent — and frequent filmgoer — I know every kids’ film coming to theaters, and I’d never heard of these two. Not only that, but neither of these films comes from a major studio. Yet the movie theater still put these posters front and center in its lobby for everyone to see before anything else.

Then again, tracking the data for animated kids’ films on both streaming and at the box office, I shouldn’t have been surprised: These movies are killing it right now.

Post-Inside Out 2 and Despicable Me 4 (not to mention last year’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie), you might know that animated movies can do huge box office numbers. What you might not know — and I neglected to emphasize last December when I covered Disney and Netflix’s animation fortunes — is how well almost all kids’ films are performing. Since 2023, the animated kids’ film genre has the best hit rate in Hollywood.

When you look at the entire landscape, not only are almost all animated kids’ films doing well at the box office this year but they’re dominating streaming too! Many people — like me — focus on the blockbuster hits and box office bombs, but even smaller animated films are making money right now.

Kids and family films are about to have a moment, so let’s look at it.

In this article, you’ll learn:

• How just a handful of blockbuster animated kids’ movies are as valuable as dozens of genre films flooding theaters

• The data on how even reasonably good second-tier kids’ animation overperforms

• The one strategic move that almost guarantees an animated hit on streaming

• Why IP and sequels are dominating kids’ movies

• Three concerns holding down this category’s full potential

• What Netflix needs to do to do better in kids’ films

• Four bits of strategic advice for growing this business

• Performance of animation vs. live-action kids’ movies