Animation Is Ruling The Box Office With ‘Despicable Me 4’ and ‘Inside Out 2’

The box office is getting a saving throw, primarily thanks to two animated films. “Despicable Me 4” and “Inside Out 2” are becoming massive juggernauts at the theater. This is giving Hollywood and the movie theater business a much-needed boost.

After this weekend, “Despicable Me 4” is heading towards $500 million globally. It made another $88 million and is now at $437.8 million worldwide.

This also makes the “Despicable Me” / “Minions” franchise the first animated franchise to hit $5 billion globally, so there are big wins there for Illumination.

Meanwhile, “Inside Out 2” is still climbing, hitting $1.35 billion globally and making it the fourth highest-grossing animated film of all time worldwide. It just beat “Frozen” for the spot and is quickly catching up to the “Super Mario Bros. Movie,” which holds the number three spot at $1.36 billion.

The first two spots belong to “The Lion King” (2019) at $1.66 billion and “Frozen 2” at $1.45 billion.

It will be interesting to see how far “Inside Out 2” goes. I think it will likely take the third place spot from Mario soon, but it’s a further gap to “Frozen 2.”

Overall, the takeaway seems to be that families will come to the box office if you give them films they want to see. Much like last year saw the rise of Mario and Luigi, and there is a demand for good family content and animation.

Hopefully, Hollywood will take note, and we see more good quality family films in the future. Disney has already announced a “Moana 2” coming this fall, and “Frozen 3” and “Toy Story 5” will be coming in the next few years.

I do worry that we may just get sequels as Hollywood plays it safe, but I think that those films will bring financial success to the studios and the box office, which really needs a boost to not lose the movie experience as we know it.

What do you think?

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