{"id":769423,"date":"2026-07-18T02:20:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T02:20:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/769423\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T02:20:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T02:20:18","slug":"hollywood-cant-survive-without-animation-so-why-no-respect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/769423\/","title":{"rendered":"Hollywood Can’t Survive Without Animation. So Why No Respect?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tTravis Knight, the CEO of Laika, the animation house behind \u201cCoraline\u201d and \u201cParaNorman,\u201d can\u2019t shake a moment from an Oscars<\/a> Nominees Luncheon in 2020.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe 52-year-old son of Nike co-founder Phil Knight was there because his stop-motion film \u201cMissing Link\u201d was up for best animated feature. Across the table sat a screenwriter he had long admired, and the two struck up a conversation. When Knight mentioned his movie, the writer replied: \u201cOh, I don\u2019t watch any of that stuff. I just let my kids tell me what to vote for.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tKnight smiled on the outside but fumed within. \u201cI was so deeply outraged,\u201d he recalls. The insult stung because Knight knew it was the industry\u2019s quiet consensus, said out loud: Animation is a babysitter.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s the paradox at the center of animation in 2026: The medium has never mattered more to Hollywood\u2019s bottom line. Universal and Illumination\u2019s \u201cThe Super Mario Galaxy Movie\u201d became the first film to cross $1 billion worldwide this year. Pixar<\/a>\u2018s spring release \u201cHoppers\u201d scored the biggest opening for an original Pixar movie since 2017\u2019s \u201cCoco.\u201d And \u201cToy Story 5<\/a>\u201d capped the run with a $160 million domestic launch ($312 million worldwide), the best debut of any film this year and the cornerstone of Pixar\u2019s comeback.\u00a0It\u2019s currently sitting at $879 million globally heading into its fifth weekend, and is destined to be another billion-dollar movie of 2026.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the nearly five decades that domestic grosses have been tracked, an animated film has finished the year as the No. 1 release just seven times, beginning with Disney\u2019s \u201cAladdin\u201d in 1992. Now the medium is having an unprecedented run, with \u201cInside Out 2\u201d and \u201cZootopia 2\u201d topping the last two calendar years (a first for animated movies to lead the box office for two consecutive years) and the latter becoming the highest-grossing animated film ever domestically. \u201cThe Super Mario Galaxy Movie\u201d is leading 2026 so far and is the only film to cross $1 billion. Setting aside the 2020 and 2021 pandemic seasons, which emptied theaters of family films, animated features have made up about 20% of the year\u2019s 10 top-grossing releases over the past decade. And yet, the artists who make these movies have rarely felt less valued: In May 2024, Pixar cut 14% of its staff \u2014 roughly 175 employees. Netflix restructured its animation unit in 2023, eliminating jobs and halting two films in preproduction.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tOne animator put it plainly: \u201cYou have no idea how frustrating it is to see press release after press release touting how much money our animated film made and how many nominations we got; then [the studio] turns to people who have worked here forever and says, \u2018We don\u2019t need you anymore.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBut some of the medium\u2019s stewards admit the condescension has been partly self-inflicted. \u201cA lot of the world still thinks of animation as films for kids, and we do it to ourselves,\u201d says Pixar chief creative officer Pete Docter, who directed Oscar winners \u201cUp,\u201d \u201cInside Out\u201d and \u201cSoul.\u201d \u201cYou look at 90% of the [Hollywood industry\u2019s] movies, and they\u2019re funny, goofy, a little bit like babysitter material. We could step up our game [as an industry].\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tNonetheless, the box office alone should elicit more respect. \u201cIf my statistics are correct, \u2018Moana 2\u2019 did more business than all the best picture nominees put together last year,\u201d says Jim Morris, Pixar\u2019s president of 21 years. \u201cAnimation is propping up a lot of the studios right now.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tWoody and Buzz Lightyear in \u201cToy Story 5\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPixar<\/p>\n

\n\tHe\u2019s right. Last year, the Chinese fantasy \u201cNe Zha 2,\u201d from Beijing Enlight Pictures, became the first animated film to cross $2 billion globally, and shortly after, Disney\u2019s \u201cZootopia 2\u201d set an all-time domestic record for the form. That reliability buys freedom: When live-action originals stall, it has been animated franchises filling the multiplexes. That cushion is what lets a studio gamble on anything new.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tGuillermo del Toro put it best during his Oscar run for the dark stop-motion reimagining of \u201cPinocchio\u201d in 2022: \u201cAnimation is not a genre; it is a medium.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\u2018Wildwood<\/a>\u2018<\/p>\n

\n\tThe folks at Laika refuse to sell their movies as \u201canimation\u201d in the first place. \u201cWe market [our projects] as \u2018films,\u2019 and we trust the audience to find them, irrespective of the medium,\u201d says David Burke, Laika\u2019s chief marketing and operations officer. \u201cOur films defy categorization.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tTreating an animated movie like an actual film is the bare minimum to show respect, and far rarer than it should be. When \u201cWildwood\u201d hits theaters in October 23, it will be distributed by Fathom Entertainment, the event-cinema specialist whose unlikely fit was proven by the re-release of \u201cCoraline\u201d in 2024, which took nearly $56 million worldwide on a 15-year-old film. This could be a potential gamechanger in the distribution model if it succeeds.<\/p>\n

\n\tSo what will it take for one of these movies to win the Academy\u2019s best picture award? Since the animated feature category was created in 2001, it has functioned as both recognition and obstacle, a place to honor the work, but one that keeps it out of the main race. Only three animated films have been nominated for best picture: \u201cBeauty and the Beast\u201d (1991), \u201cUp\u201d (2009) and \u201cToy Story 3\u201d (2010). The animation community feels that list should be substantially larger.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBut filmmakers disagree on the fix. Morris is a voting member of the Academy, and his game plan is to keep getting animation\u2019s writers, designers and cinematographers admitted as voters across the Academy\u2019s craft branches until, he says, their numbers are large enough that \u201call that stuff won\u2019t matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFor Jared Bush, the chief creative officer at Walt Disney Animation Studios, the answer isn\u2019t strategic. \u201cPeople want to feel something,\u201d Bush says. \u201cThe movies that have won that award are movies that made a lot of people emotional, that they felt a kinship with, and resonated for them. I think we just need to keep doing that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIllumination founder Chris Meledandri, who\u2019s behind the \u201cMinions and Monsters\u201d and \u201cSuper Mario\u201d sequels, rejects the premise of bias. \u201cHistorically comedies have had a harder time too,\u201d he says. \u201cBut we\u2019ve evolved to a point where a lot of those unstated biases have broken down. There\u2019s a collective appreciation now for the artistry that goes into an animated film.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMexican animator Jorge Guti\u00e9rrez<\/a> (\u201cThe Book of Life\u201d), however, does not believe an animated film will take the top prize. \u201cI hate to be not optimistic, but I don\u2019t see it ever happening,\u201d he says. \u201cThe live-action component is too big. There are too many Academy members. I\u2019m an optimist at heart, but I\u2019m also a pragmatist and a realist. I just don\u2019t see it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tLet\u2019s hope that one day, the Academy will.<\/p>\n

\n\tCheck out three exclusive images from Laika\u2019s upcoming animated feature \u201cWildwood\u201d below.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Travis Knight, the CEO of Laika, the animation house behind \u201cCoraline\u201d and \u201cParaNorman,\u201d can\u2019t shake a moment from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":769424,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[88,29506,13774,79349,162108],"class_list":["post-769423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-oscars","tag-pixar","tag-toy-story-5","tag-wildwood"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=769423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769423\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/769424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=769423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=769423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=769423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}