The most expensive animated movie of all time

Sep 05, 2023

Ever since animation went commercial in the 1930s, the cinematic medium has been curiously disrespected and relegated to being somehow ‘lesser’ than live-action filmmaking. Of course, this belief is ridiculous, with classics like Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli masterpiece Spirited Away and Pixar’s superhero flick The Incredibles being two of the greatest films of the modern century.

Despite this, the medium is too often seen as being exclusively for children, with adult animations rarely getting the opportunities and necessary budgets to flex their muscles on the big screen. The Japanese anime industry has helped to change such opinions, with the extraordinarily diverse art form being popularised around the world, thanks to such mature tales as Hajime Yatate’s Cowboy Bebop and Hideaki Anno’s Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Despite this, animated movies are surprisingly expensive to put together, with a massive team of hardworking writers, art directors, special effects workers and sound designers being needed to create each and every one. Each of these people needs a fair wage, and when you consider their long working hours, the money needed to create an animated masterpiece can swell considerably.

In fact, there are two movies that cost north of $250million to put together, with both coming from the biggest and most famous animation house in the world, Disney.

The first came in 2010 with the release of Tangled, one of the company’s first ever adventures in 3D animation, a highly successful technical achievement which earned Disney almost $600million at the box office. Made for a total of $260million, the cost of the movie swelled due to the fact that it involved a lot of new technologies, creating everything in-house with a production length of six years.

Boasting a unique art style, the film blends CGI and traditional animation, pointing to the company’s own transition to a new technical future. Also apt was the nature of Tangled as a story. Adapted from the European fairy tale Rapunzel, Tangled was a return to Disney’s fairytale roots, with a cast that included the talents of Ron Perlman, Zachary Levi and Mandy Moore.

Years later, the live-action remake of The Lion King was able to match the incredible budget of Tangled for similar reasons too. Just like Tangled, Jon Favreau’s live-action Lion King required a revolutionary approach to the animated medium, especially as, despite appearing as ‘real’ and live-action, the remake is anything but, technically counting as an animation thanks to its abundance of CGI and innovative motion-capture techniques.

With an A-list cast of Hollywood superstars, including Seth Rogen, Beyonce, Donald Glover, Jeremy Irons, John Oliver and Chiwetel Ejiofor, the remake was able to rake in an eye-watering $1.663billion worldwide.

Indeed, the only films able to (almost) match the budget of these animated behemoths were Pixar’s Toy Story 3, Incredibles 2, Elemental, Monsters University and Finding Dory.