The Powerhouse Known As Animation

Five Thirty Eight, known as a polling aggregator for American politics, and also a sports blog (it's owned by ESPN/Disney) has done a breakdown and analysis of animated features and the studios that make them.

The domestic box office made $11.3 billion last year ... [of which] animated movies pulled in $1.4 billion. ...

So far this year, digital animation has accounted for 21 percent of domestic box office revenue. ... Although the annual number of tickets sold overall is down since 2000, that’s not true for animated movies — those numbers are up, entirely thanks to the genre’s digital branch. ...

Five Thirty Eight shows, in various graphs and charts, the grosses for animated features going back twenty years, pointing out that digital animation has exploded over the past two decades, enriching a plethora of companies and causing even more product to be made year after year. The website's conclusion?

... The animation field is ... somehow bigger than all the studios [doing animation].

“The Lego Movie,” the top-grossing animated movie of 2014, was made by none of [the regular animation producers]. It was produced by Warner Bros., (animation by Animal Logic), and there are sequels and spinoffs to come.

“Sausage Party,” which I understand is essentially pornography but still made $34 million in its opening weekend, was not made by any of these wholesome firms. Rovio, a cell phone game maker, commissioned an “Angry Birds” movie, which went ahead and made $100 million domestically. The commercialism is getting out of control! ...

In actual fact, animation is proving that it has broad global appeal, even when it comes in an R-rated format. As TAG blog has previously noted, cartoons are a form of story presentation, not a genre.