Hollywood can't survive without animation. Here's why
Hollywood can't survive without animation at the box office in 2026, yet artists say the industry still treats the medium like a babysitter. Animated hits from Super Mario to Toy Story 5 are propping up studios even as Pixar and Netflix cut jobs — and Oscar best picture respect remains rare.
Key Takeaways
- Animated films are leading 2026 box office, with Universal and Illumination's The Super Mario Galaxy Movie the first to cross $1 billion worldwide this year.
- Pixar's Toy Story 5 opened to $160 million domestically ($312 million worldwide) and was heading toward another billion-dollar run.
- Despite the money, Laika CEO Travis Knight and others describe a culture that still dismisses animation as kids' fare.
- Only three animated films have ever been nominated for Oscar best picture: Beauty and the Beast, Up, and Toy Story 3.
- Laika's Wildwood arrives in theaters Oct. 23 via Fathom Entertainment after Coraline's 2024 re-release earned nearly $56 million worldwide.
The tension is not abstract. For more streaming and TV alerts on how Hollywood's biggest money machines are treated, the animation respect gap is the clearest warning sign.
Why does Hollywood still dismiss animation?
Travis Knight, CEO of Laika — the studio behind Coraline and ParaNorman — still remembers an Oscars Nominees Luncheon in 2020. His stop-motion film Missing Link was up for best animated feature when a screenwriter he admired said he did not watch "that stuff," leaving his kids to tell him what to vote for.
"I was so deeply outraged," Knight later recalled, calling the exchange proof of an industry consensus: animation as babysitter. Variety's full report on Hollywood's animation respect problem frames that slight as the quiet rule said out loud.
Pixar chief creative officer Pete Docter, who directed Up, Inside Out, and Soul, admits some of the stigma is self-inflicted. "A lot of the world still thinks of animation as films for kids, and we do it to ourselves," he said, arguing much of the industry's output still reads as "babysitter material."
How much is animation propping up studios right now?
Hollywood can't survive without those animated grosses. Pixar's Hoppers scored the biggest opening for an original Pixar movie since 2017's Coco. Toy Story 5 posted the best debut of any film in 2026 and sat at $879 million globally heading into its fifth weekend.
Inside Out 2 and Zootopia 2 topped the prior two calendar years — a first for animated movies to lead box office for two consecutive years — while China's Ne Zha 2 became the first animated film to cross $2 billion globally. Over the past decade, animated features have made up about 20% of each year's 10 top-grossing releases, excluding pandemic seasons.
Yet valuing the art has lagged. Pixar cut about 14% of staff (roughly 175 jobs) in May 2024. Netflix restructured animation in 2023, cutting jobs and halting two films in preproduction. Pixar president Jim Morris noted Moana 2 did more business than all best picture nominees combined last year: "Animation is propping up a lot of the studios right now."
Will an animated film ever win best picture?
Guillermo del Toro argued during his Pinocchio Oscar run that "animation is not a genre; it is a medium." Since the animated feature category launched in 2001, only Beauty and the Beast (1991), Up (2009), and Toy Story 3 (2010) have reached best picture.
Walt Disney Animation's Jared Bush says the path is emotional resonance, not lobbying. Illumination's Chris Meledandri argues old biases are breaking down. Mexican animator Jorge Gutierrez remains skeptical an animated film will ever take the top prize, citing the Academy's live-action majority.
Laika markets projects as films, not "animation," says chief marketing and operations officer David Burke. When Wildwood opens Oct. 23 through Fathom — buoyed by Coraline's nearly $56 million 2024 re-release — the test is whether treating animated work like real cinema can finally force the respect the numbers already demand.