Despite everyone and there mother entering the Streaming Wars, the movie industry is stillruled by box office numbers and rental sales. While consistent money is nice to have, nothing makes a studio more happy than to receive extra dollars on top of the money that is expected to come in. And when it comes to box office, something that is well known in the industry is that if you are making an animated movie for theatrical release, make sure it’s a family or kids film. Yet thanks to recent anime hits (particularly from Crunchyroll) this mindset is slowly being challenged.
While animation for adults has had far more bombs than hits, with recent anime success stories there is a mindset that is changing. Aside from anime being taken more seriously as a viable business for movie theaters to get into, it is having a domino affect that is making major animation studios taking a second look at making animation for adults. Let’s discuss the history of animation at the box office, and why the success of anime at the box office is good news for animation fans in general.
Disney’s Dominant Success
While animation has always had a place at the box office,with rare exceptions, most of the 1920s through 1990s were dominated by Disney films. Occasionally there would be an animated hit like The Care Bears Movie and An American Tale, however for the most part if there was a hit animated movie, it was a Disney movie. This meant that if you wanted to make an animated feature film for the theaters, chances are it was going to be a G-rated musical that would invoke the feelings of watching a Disney movie.
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Limited PG-13 Success Stories
If you attempted to make a movie outside the G-rated formula, chances are you would be throwing your money away. While Ralph Bakshi was able to make some waves with the R-ratedAmerican Pop, PG-ratedThe Lord of the Rings, and X-ratedFritz the Cat, the vast majority of PG-13 or higher films simply bombed. Few people remember the PG-ratedStarchaser: The Legend of Orinor the PG-13-rated9(despite being produced by Tim Burton). The PG-13 hybrid comedyCool Worldwas anything but, while Disney’s own first attempt at a PG-rated animated film for adults –The Black Cauldron– almost bankrupted the studio.
The PG-13-rated ‘family comedy’Bebe’s Kids dropped like a bomb while the similarly ratedPrincess Mononokealmost cost US fansthe rest of the Studio Ghibli films. Sure there’s the occasional success story like the PG-13-ratedThe Simpsons Movieand the R-ratedSouth Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut, but for the most part adult animation is considered box office poison, known more for toppling studios (as is the case withTitan A.E.andFinal Fantasy: The Spirits Within) rather than earning studios a sizable profit. While the box office has been kinder to PG-rated films, any animated film with PG-13 or higher is still considered the movie equivalent to lighting money on fire.
Anime’s Recent Box Office Success
If you thought it was though for a PG-13-rated American animated film to make money at the box office, try being an anime film. While anime films likeGhost in the Shell 2: Innocense, Escaflowne: The Movie, Metropolis,and the vast majority ofStudio Ghibli filmswere released in theaters, most of them failed to crack the $1 million dollar mark. Those that did certainly didn’t reach $10 million. While small releases for Oscar consideration was considered a necessary evil, most of these were regulated to one night Fathom Event releases (where even those weren’t sold out most of the time).
This started to change when Funimation (now Crunchyroll) decided to start making inroads to releasing more anime films theatrically. Their first major push came with the PG-ratedYour Name, a movie that wascritically acclaimedbut didn’t move the needle much in America, topping out at $5.1 million after a three-month run (Japan was atotallydifferent story). When the PG-ratedDragon Ball Super: Brollywas given a 1,000 screen launch and made almost $10 million dollars, it convinced Funimation to continue releasing anime in theaters. Sony took notice of this success and released the R-ratedDemon Slayer: The Movieto stunning box office success: the film opened to $19.5 million and ended the run with a truly unexpected $49.5 million total gross in the states.
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Later the PG-13-ratedJujutsu Kaisen 0crushed box office expectations by opening with $17.6 million and ending with over $31 million, beatingDragon Ball Super: Brolly’stotal box office run. Not to be outdone,Dragon Ball Super: Super Herowould open with a little over $20 million dollars on the opening weekend and to date has grossed around $38.1 million dollars despite having a PG-13 rating. Most recentlyOne Piece: Redopened with $9.5 million. That’s a bit of a letdown, but considering it’s also a PG-13 film based on a show that is primarily considered a family show (with undubbed songs to boot), and it’s one more example that anime is no longer box office poison.
What this Means for the Future of Adult Animation
While these box office results are good news for anime films, it has also turned heads at major studios who are looking to expand making adult animation profitable. There is talk that Sony is now considering letting their upcomingSpider-Man: Across the Multiversemovies enter into PG13-rated territory (after mandating some edits to get the first film to be PG). Illumination Animation, the studio behind family friendly hits likeSing, The Secret Life of Pets, and theMinionsmovies, recently recruited executive from Netflix to form a new animation studio that would make films for adult audiences: Moonlight.
As for Netflix themselves, they are committed to making adult animation (as their recentWendell & Wildproves), but now that they are dipping their toe in the theatrical game withGlass Onion: A Knives Out Tale, it seems inevitable that more of these adult animated features are going to start showing up in movie theaters. There are still hurdles to overcome in this area;The Bob’s Burgers Moviewas rated PG-13and certainly didn’t make enough money to be considered profitable, but the more successful these PG-13 and R-rated anime movies are the more studios will continue to realize that so long as the budget is reasonable, animation for adult audiences CAN be profitable in the future!
