{"id":49414,"date":"2016-07-13T07:56:01","date_gmt":"2016-07-13T14:56:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/?p=49414"},"modified":"2016-07-16T21:35:05","modified_gmt":"2016-07-17T04:35:05","slug":"is-this-the-biggest-year-for-animated-movies-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2016\/07\/is-this-the-biggest-year-for-animated-movies-ever.html","title":{"rendered":"Is this the biggest year for animated movies ever?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"secretlifeofpets-a\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a fun trivia bit: animated movies have been #1 at the box office for the past four weeks (three weeks for Finding Dory<\/a><\/i> and one week for The Secret Life of Pets<\/a><\/i>), and the last time animation ruled the box office for such a long stretch was three years ago, when Monsters University<\/i> and Despicable Me 2<\/i> were #1 for two weeks each.<\/p>\n

Box-office observers are now wondering<\/a> whether The Secret Life of Pets<\/i> \u2014 coming off the biggest opening of any animated non-sequel ever<\/a> \u2014 can beat the Ghostbusters<\/i> reboot this coming weekend. If it does, it would probably mark the first time in history that animated movies ruled the box office for five<\/i> consecutive weeks.<\/p>\n

And then \u2014 who knows? \u2014 there\u2019s always the possibility that Ice Age: Collision Course<\/i> could beat Star Trek Beyond<\/a><\/i> two weeks from now. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s very likely \u2014 the Ice Age<\/a><\/i> franchise is incredibly huge overseas but has tended to perform more modestly in North America for the most part \u2014 but you never know.<\/p>\n

But let\u2019s not get ahead of ourselves. What is<\/i> indisputable is that animated films have been #1 for ten weeks already this year, which is just one notch behind the record eleven weeks that animated films ruled in 2010 \u2014 and the year is only half over!<\/p>\n

Here, as near as I can make it, are the films that were #1 at the box office in each year going back to 1982, according to Box Office Mojo<\/a>. As you can see, there were only one or two animated films that reached #1 in the 1980s, and only one to three reached #1 in a typical year in the 1990s, but over the past decade the animation format has blossomed \u2014 and it isn\u2019t just one or two studios dominating the field, either.<\/p>\n

Note: This list does not include films like Hop<\/i>, Ted<\/i>, Stuart Little<\/i> and others that had photorealistic animated protagonists in a live-action environment, nor does it include Enchanted<\/i>, which is basically a live-action movie with an animated prologue; but it does<\/i> include films like Space Jam<\/i> and The SpongeBob Movie<\/i>, which put established animated characters in a live-action context for at least a portion of the story.<\/p>\n