WHY IS ANIMATION THE TOP MONEY MAKER?

Animated motion pictures earn more, year after year, than any other genre in feature film entertainment.

Box Office Mojo reports 735 feature films had theatrical release in 2016 with box office receipts totaling $11.37 billion. Only 14 of those were animated motion pictures yet they accounted for more than $6.13 billion. How can 14 films account for more than half the total theatrical revenue of all motion pictures?

THAT'S NOT THE HALF OF IT! 

Animated films also enjoy greater post box office revenue. Producers and Investors derive a large percentage of their profits from DVD sales and Video-On-Demand. Variety reports subscription services like Netflix and Hulu which eclipsed DVD sales in 2016, increased more than 30% in 2017 to $9.5 billion.

Animated films buck the trend here, still reaping huge profits in physical DVD sales, though digital downloads are gaining in popularity.

FOXES and TIGERS and PANDAS, oh my!

The top grossing animated motion pictures over the last decade have been almost exclusively based on animals. FROZEN and DESPICABLE ME were exceptions, but they had, Sven and, Olaf, and of course, The Minions, who, let’s face it, are adorable

ALL THE OTHER STUFF

Smart investors will advise you that financial success comes from having multiple streams of income. Animated films garner huge proceeds from merchandising. Many animated films make more in retail licensing than they do at the box office. (Don’t worry Star Wars fans, none of them have passed you yet.) Think of all the places you’ve seen merchandise from your favorite animated film: Toys, McDonald’s Happy Meals, T-shirts, Pajamas, Original Soundtracks, Phone apps, Video games, the list goes on and on.

SUPPLY AND DEMAND Animated films typically take 4-6 years to produce. Floating the financing for that long is one of the reasons so few of these films are released each year. The studios that can afford it know the market is ripe and ready. Disney Animation, Pixar, DreamWorks Animation and Illumination Entertainment are constantly developing and producing films to meet the demand. Because so few animated films are released each year, distributors communicate with one another to make sure films aren’t released the same weekend. Animated films typically enjoy more than two weeks of exclusivity in theaters before the next animated film competes for theatergoer’s dollars.

CGI IS KING BUT... CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) first made popular by TOY STORY, is still the gold standard when it comes to top performing animated motion pictures, but there are alternatives. Released earlier this year, EARLY MAN, a claymation (stop-motion animation) film from Aardman Animation, the team behind Wallace and Gromit, is entertaining and familiar. Wes Anderson’s much anticipated, ISLE OF DOGS, is stop-frame animation with puppets. (See how it was done) CGI/Live-Action hybrids are becoming more popular. Who can forget by Tim Burton’s ALICE IN WONDERLAND or the GARFIELD films? es, the list goes on and on. 

CLASSICS RE-IMAGINED Capitalizing on classic stories gave Disney its start in the 1930s and continues to this day. SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS, PETER PAN and BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, paved the way for more recent films like THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG, TANGLED, and FROZEN, inspired by Hans Christian Anderson’s classic, The Snow Queen. But Disney doesn’t corner the market on classics anymore.

Other studios realized the familiar is already popular. Sony’s recent CGI/Live-Action hybrid, PETER RABBIT; DreamWorks Animation's blockbuster: PUSS IN BOOTS,

Fox’s FERDINAND, and Unified Pictures’ upcoming, THE ARK AND THE AARDVARK, the story of Noah’s Ark told from the Animal’s point of view.

DEMOGRAPHICS HAVE EVOLVED Animation is growing up. Odyssey reports adult audiences not only get all the jokes, the morality messages in these films hit far closer to home. Studios know children don’t attend these films alone. In fact, Pixar explains very clearly on their website that their target audience for FINDING DORY, for example, are 18-44 year-old women with an annual income of $50,000 or less. This might explain why you see so many 24-year-olds in the theaters. It may sound oddly skewed, but narratives are intentionally scripted to entertain adults. There are two reasons for this:

1. Children don’t attend these films alone.

2. 40% of theater revenue is generated by non-family audiences.

Add to that the fact that parents and grandparents will take children to see these films no matter what’s happening in the stock market, world politics, or the weather.

IT WILL ONLY GET BIGGER Reality television may be the cheapest form of entertainment, but bitter conflict, harsh language, and less than appealing personalities make the market for Family Friendly Entertainment evergreen.

The future of animation is only growing stronger. With a new audience born every four years, classics will continue to sell, and as animation techniques are honed and perfected, these films will go on to captivate audiences around the globe. What's your favorite animated motion picture?