Box Office Potential
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From 2015 to 2017, 25% of the top 25 box-office performers were animated films, which is surprising, considering animated films account for less than 5% of all major film releases. This makes sense from a logistical standpoint as animated films draw in an entire family whereas non-kid-friendly features usually draw couples, or pairs of friends. Also, parents are actively seeking wholesome forms of entertainment as a part of raising their children while non-parents don't necessary make a priority out of entertainment. A recent article in The Wrap also theorizes that animated films do better overseas since they are much easier to dub. Whatever the reason, animated films rarely do poorly at the box office.
One would think there would be more animated films made in an attempt to cash in on the trend. However, one must remember that animated films come with a hefty price in production, a risky proposition, limiting frequent animated releases to a few major well-funded studios. But as technology becomes cheaper and animation becomes outsourced to international companies, animated movies, such as Captain Underpants and Sausage Party are being produced for less than 40 million and still raking in profits of 200-300%. With animated films trending toward less expensive production, according to an article in The Hollywood Reporter, animated films are inching closer to low-risk, high-reward.
Concept Development
Assuming appropriate marketing strategies are employed, some level of box office success is guaranteed for animated films. But what makes an animated film a sustained box office success is secondhand marketing generated by word of mouth, which depends directly on the quality of the film itself. Consider that parents, rather than children, would be likelier to spread the positive word in a coherent fashion so it would be incumbent on the film to appeal not only to the children but to the parents as well, which explains the most recent crop of films that explore adult themes, gradually pushing the boundaries of what a child can handle. Take Toy Story 3 and Up, for example, both of which depict themes revolving around death or near-death moments, while Coco can be viewed as a mediation on death itself. Even films like Inside Out that don't deal with death really tap into a deep emotion. When parents take their children to see animated films today, they can almost expect to be touched on some level, if not to end the film in tears altogether. It is crucial to match that standard, and push the genre to new territories yet to be explored in animated film.
Animated films continually push the limits for what type of subjects can be animated in film from people and animals (Disney) to toys and bugs (Pixar) and food (Sausage Party). In a writing class, I was assigned an exercise to write about something one may consider boring so I chose a rock, an archetypical inanimate object. I thought to myself, what can possibly be so exciting about a rock? Perhaps it's been underground for millions of years and just being dug up from under ground, what would it be like to see a changed world? Maybe it's like being born again, and with the moon being the first sight it sees, perhaps it mistakes the moon for its mother. I was tempted to give the rock legs to allow it to go in pursuit of its mother, but this felt like a cheap trick that didn't really do justice to the object, as so many other films are quick to pull (Toy Story, Sausage Party). If a film is no greater than it's primary conflicts, what better conflict is there than to fill the rock with ambition and yet literally make it handicapped, needing to find other means to succeed?
Hidden Market Potential
The story can thus be viewed as an allegory for living with a handicap, illuminating the notion that even handicapped people, or children for that matter, have hopes and goals that they want to achieve in life, but can only really do so with the help of other people. Handicapped characters are seldom explored in film, let alone animated films, in which lifeless characters seem to be able to do pretty much anything. If there was a film which explored characters that are limited in their capacity, certainly this would appeal to the 15% of children in America, or ten million total, suffering from development disabilities. This market can be reached directly through schools and organizations that assist these children, such as Make a Wish Foundation in exchange for a small percentage of profits pledged to the organizations involved. This strategy is similar to that used in marketing The Passion of the Christ, which heavily relied on church groups to bolster their returns. Given that these organizations serve large groups of children and operate mostly during the day, it wouldn't be a stretch to imagine entire theaters sold out, (at a charitable cost) even during non-peak viewing times. Furthermore, the film isn't explicitly handicapped-centric so it would still capture the base revenue from a more general animation market.
Box Office Projections
Budget: $40-50 million/Gross: $250 million
The budget is deduced by aligning costs along the average of recent low-cost animated films, Sausage Party (19M) and Captain Underpants (38M) and adding an additional 10- 20M to ensure better than average animation quality and improved advertising efforts.
Additional cost-savings can be derived from individually contracting talented animators, as opposed to working with an established animation studio with its talent at a premium.
The gross is deduced based on the returns of the most recent animated kids movie sans prior name-recognition Coco (210M) but with an approximate $50M additional gross for the film’s added social relevancy along with added revenue from handicapped audiences.
While Inanimate may be at a slight disadvantage being a non-Pixar production, even the non-Pixar Captain Underpants grossed 125M. Inanimate can elevate itself to Pixar-level reception by previewing at film festivals as the writing quality of the movie will render it well-received, which will help it build sufficient momentum leading up to a wide release.