Animated films which are not kid-oriented

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BlackLegSanji

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Has there ever been a successful one? The truth is I can't even name more than a few of them, let alone successful ones.

Why do you think animated films dealing with mature subject matter are not being made? Is it because people associate animation with cartoons? Or is it because animation houses want to stick to the demographics that have been proven to bring them the most profits?

PS I'm talking about feature length animated films that get a theatrical release.
 
Pulling this out of my butt but guessing it has to do with what has worked/made money in the past. If Anime or other adult-targeted feature length material in the past had made money we'd see more of it, so guessing the Pixar/Disney/Dreamworks etc. kiddie stuff raked in the cash while the rest didn't (aside from a few established properties like Simpsons etc.)
 
Fritz the Cat (1972). Definitely not kid-oriented! :shocked:
Was the first X-rated cartoon. Now UR.

Cost $850,000, made $90 million. Is that successful?

 
I would guess it's a "cartoon are for kids" thing. I watched a few Archer series. Okay. I have seen plenty of grown-ups watch the Toy Story movie and the Cars/Planes ones also, but on their own tv sets.

MW
 
Because most adults don't like animation. They prefer to watch real people.

Live-action performance has more nuance, something that goes right over the head of a child.

When I was a kid, I liked the action scenes in Top Gun. The dialog scenes were boring. They were about relationships, romance, friendship, rivalry, and identity (zzzzz...). Now when I watch Top Gun, I like all that stuff, and the dogfights seem superficial and trivial. In the same way, GI Joe seems silly and certainly isn't fulfilling to watch anymore. Animated movies with adult characters dealing with adult conflict may at first seem cool in an avant-garde sort of way, but the novelty wears off. Soon I find myself craving to see a real human face without the layer of abstraction in between.
 
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Waking Life, A Scanner Darkly, The Simpsons Movie, Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Mixed bag in terms of successful, but I think most animation movies, even though set up and technically marketed towards kids, have a few layers in the movie that are for adults, whether it be thematically or a cultural reference/joke that is in there clearly for adults. I'm thinking of Inside Out, and The Lego Movie specifically.

Edit: Also, would you count Avatar?
 
Cool, I didn't know about Fritz the Cat (1972). It's strange that the only other successful animated film that I remember, South Park, belongs in the same sub-category, and both are based on existing IP. That Heavy Metal film grossed $20m (checked on Google) on a budget of $9m so I guess it was moderately successful. Perhaps it's because of the niche audience (metal fans?) it was going after?

I agree that adults might prefer to watch live action movies, but I think this can change once they have seen a few really good ones. Too bad that nobody has tried to make an epic animated movie that's on par with the best blockbusters in terms of production value since Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within flopped at the box office (I don't know why, I liked that movie so much).

homestar_kevin said:
Waking Life, A Scanner Darkly, The Simpsons Movie, Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Mixed bag in terms of successful, but I think most animation movies, even though set up and technically marketed towards kids, have a few layers in the movie that are for adults, whether it be thematically or a cultural reference/joke that is in there clearly for adults. I'm thinking of Inside Out, and The Lego Movie specifically.

Edit: Also, would you count Avatar?
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Out of the 4 you listed I would say Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly are the type that I want to see more but I guess the subject matter is a bit too hard to digest for the general public.
I would not count Avatar as an animated film. It's more of a live action movie enhanced by CGI.
 
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There was whole bunch of Ralph Bakshi stuff in the '70s and '80s. I think adults (outside of Japan) just really aren't into R-rated animation.
 
There are a bunch of "realistic" video games like "LA Noire", which have to be popular with more than just teenagers with all the revenues they gross. "LA Noire" used MoCap just like Bob Zemeckis' "Polar Express" and "Beowulf".
 
I think the OP's point is why isn't there MORE adult animation, not that there weren't ANY examples. Seems like tons of the Pixar/Disney etc. stuff comes out every year, few if any properly "adult" movies.
 
Josh Bass said:
I think the OP's point is why isn't there MORE adult animation, not that there weren't ANY examples. Seems like tons of the Pixar/Disney etc. stuff comes out every year, few if any properly "adult" movies.
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Yes, that is what drove me to make this post. I want to understand why there aren't more of animated movies, not just the high-concept/artistic or satirical ones but also the mainstream, blockbuster type.
 
The usual 'understanding' of adult is films with sex... but with the understanding that the films are not sexual in nature, but have 'adult' themes and presentation:

Ones that come to mind, which haven't been mentioned:

"Lord of the Rings"(1978)
"Iron Giant"(1999)

Would "Battle for Terra"(2007) count as 'adult' oriented, or is it to much targeting a 'younger' audience?

As a note... "Fritz the Cat" was a very popular cartoon character, which generated a large 'market' for the film.

There were a number of experimental, if you will, films that were made in the 70s that attempted to move certain genres out of 'them old fashioned films'. A musical X rated film, a 'soft' X Flash Gordon parody, etc.

One even had "Midnight Cowboy"(1969), with an X rating, winning an Oscar.
 
I'd love to see more animation at all, but I don't think it'll come from big studios/blockbuster type films you're thinking of.

They seem too pre-occupied with remakes, existing IPs, and super hero films to invest in even small original films, let alone large scale/cost projects like animated features aimed towards adults.

I think DLD's mention of LA Noire is a really strong point too. A lot of these stories that could be told in such a format probably get turned into video games for more interaction and a pre-existing market.
 
Space Jam?

The animated sequence in Xanadu?

Titan A.E.?

There was a story today about Warner wanting desperately to do a live-action version of Akira, a Japanese animated classic, that they think could maybe be the next "Matrix" series.
 
Those are all existing IPs brought to the big screen from TV though. What about original stuff? I remember smaller movies like that Final Fantasy movie (again, that didn't do very well, from what I recall, so, again, probably why there aren't more).
 
I think we can all agree that studios are too dependent on established IPs and series, but video game movies aren't exactly any more original than a TV show transferred to the big screen IMO.

Final Fantasy and Warcraft are just as big/bigger of franchises as Beavis and Butthead, granted from different worlds, but the fanbase is certainly there.
 
Oh, doy. I guess I didn't think of the Final Fantasy movie as belonging to an established IP 'cause even though it shares a name with the game series, I don't know that the movie story had anything to do with anything related to the games? It was all about ghost aliens or something.
 
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