Animated Action Movies vs Box Office

The Overlord

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I'm not talking about a kid friendly family movie like that, I'm talking about serious mature grim dark animated action movies aimed more at adults.

But what are we defining as mature? More complex story telling or just a bunch of violence swearing and sex? The only kid friendly thing about Hunchback of Notre Dame are the gargoyles, everything else is played seriously.

Would something like Star Wars be mature or not? What about the various Marvel movies?

Why is movie theaters still the gold standard of movie validation? With the pandemic we have seen far more movies go to streaming over theatres.
 

PicardMan

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But what are we defining as mature? More complex story telling or just a bunch of violence swearing and sex? The only kid friendly thing about Hunchback of Notre Dame are the gargoyles, everything else is played seriously.

Probably a PG-13 to R rated animated action film. Probably something like 9. Disney is still known as a children's brand and Hunchback of Notre Dame still somehow got away with a G rating. The South Park-esque vulgar comedy of Sausage Party was the only successful rated R animated movie in the entire 21st century (again, Ralph Bakshi's 20th century works were successful, but the animation landscape is dramatically different from a half century ago). Even then, Sausage Party wasn't a trend as nothing like it has come out since. The rated R Demon Slayer is only getting a limited release because in America rated R animation has to be comedic to be mainstream.
 

powerjake

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But what are we defining as mature? More complex story telling or just a bunch of violence swearing and sex? The only kid friendly thing about Hunchback of Notre Dame are the gargoyles, everything else is played seriously.

Would something like Star Wars be mature or not? What about the various Marvel movies?

Why is movie theaters still the gold standard of movie validation? With the pandemic we have seen far more movies go to streaming over theatres.

My point is for adult serious animated movies aimed at adults in the tone of Ridley Scotts Alien or John Carpenters The Thing.
 

pacman000

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Animated horror/terror? That could be fun.

Not really into sex/violence, but scary animated movie could be fun. Perhaps a mystery, with a few action scenes?
 

powerjake

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Can't believe some people do not get what I'm talking about in this topic, when I said "grim dark serious animated movies that are not comedies aimed at adults". It would have a really complex story like if its fantasy, science fiction or even horror stories.

The ratings would range from PG-13 or Rated R.
 

pacman000

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I’m wondering what would sepparate it from a regular animated feature, except for increased violence. What do you mean by “complex?” Challenging themes? Lots of plot twists? Morally ambiguous characters? Random pseudo-philosophical statements?
 

Dr.Pepper

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Many of the movies mentioned in the first post suffered from marketing problems. Some of them were barely prompted or the studio were unsure of who the movie was for.
 

harry580

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My point is for adult serious animated movies aimed at adults in the tone of Ridley Scotts Alien or John Carpenters The Thing.
well, there's a. rumor we going to get a alien vs predator anime for Netflix, but now disney bought fox, it must likely they going to put that anime on hulu but with the lawsuit from the predator writers, this put the future of predator in question
 

powerjake

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I’m wondering what would sepparate it from a regular animated feature, except for increased violence. What do you mean by “complex?” Challenging themes? Lots of plot twists? Morally ambiguous characters? Random pseudo-philosophical statements?

Yes, I mean complex storytelling with mature themes. also the adult serious animated CGI movies would look realistic like this 2007 animated Beowulf film.

beowulf460.jpg
 

The Overlord

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Probably a PG-13 to R rated animated action film. Probably something like 9. Disney is still known as a children's brand and Hunchback of Notre Dame still somehow got away with a G rating. The South Park-esque vulgar comedy of Sausage Party was the only successful rated R animated movie in the entire 21st century (again, Ralph Bakshi's 20th century works were successful, but the animation landscape is dramatically different from a half century ago). Even then, Sausage Party wasn't a trend as nothing like it has come out since. The rated R Demon Slayer is only getting a limited release because in America rated R animation has to be comedic to be mainstream.

Wizards PG back in the 70s, but PG back the 70s meant something different back then.

Frankly Hollywood barely ever releases R-rated films in theatres now.

Considering hardly anything is released in theatres during the pandemic, heck even before the pandemic mid budget artsy films like the Irish Man was released on Netflix.

Now would I be happy with more PG-13 and R rated animated movies in theatres? Sure, but I don't think these films appearing in streaming makes them any better or worse than films that appeared in theatres. The prestige of theatres has been undermined by the fact streaming will take chances on things that theattes won't.
 

PicardMan

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Now would I be happy with more PG-13 and R rated animated movies in theatres? Sure, but I don't think these films appearing in streaming makes them any better or worse than films that appeared in theatres. The prestige of theatres has been undermined by the fact streaming will take chances on things that theaters won't.

I do believe studios will probably be afraid of making mega budget animated action films like Titan AE. Tons of DC direct to video/streaming movies exist and they cost about $3.5 million to make, which is pretty small by Hollywood standards, but there's a lot of care and hard work put into these niche movies. It seems like a lot of these movies are for niche "nerd" audiences rather than mainstream audiences as there's that stigma against action cartoons (or at least The Big Bang Theory portrays action cartoons in this manner).
 

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