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What Happened To Live Action Kids Movies?

Is The Live Action Kid Movie Dead?

By Mickell FordPublished 7 years ago 3 min read
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What Happened To Live Action Kids Movies?

Diary Of A Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul was released on May 19th debuting at number six with a first weekend gross of $7 Million and a domestic gross of $15 Million, which means it will probably not make back its budget of $22 Million. I'm not sure maybe one more weekend will be the charm for the Wimpy Kid. But with the failure of this movie and Monster Trucks(another live action kids film) the question has to be asked: "What Happened To Live Action Kids Movies?" The live action kid film has been on a steady decline since the start of the 21st century with some exceptions like the Harry Potter Series, but those movies also got a steady influx of fans from the geek culture to help make that franchise a success. Other live action kids movies haven't been so lucky and the number of theatrical releases for live action kids movies has gone down as studios choose to focus more on animation due to the fact that those movies make way more money than live action kids movies. Which in my opinion makes me sad, as a kid who grew up in the late 80's and early 90's with classic live action kids films such as The Goonies, Home Alone, Hook, The Mighty Ducks and The Sandlot, movies that kids of my era still hold in high regard along with animated classics like The Lion King, Toy Story, and The Secret of NIMH, so where and why did live action kids movies fall off the tracks? The first reason was the low quality of kids movies that were being released in the late 90's "I mean did anyone really ask for a Mr. Magoo live action movie or a Home Alone movie without Macaulay Culkin? The second reason was DVD and The Disney Channel, straight to video is nothing new, neither are made for TV movies but near the late 90's into the 2000's live action kid films thrived on these platforms, which is a smart strategy for studios.Why release five live action kids movies in the theater when you can release ten on DVD and The Disney Channel and now Netflix and make double the money. The rise of superhero movies is also a reason why live action kids movie don't do well at the box office, now that kids can see their favorite superheroes in live action save the world in a PG-13 and sometimes R-rated setting why would they want to see some kid do it in a G-rated setting? The final reason live action kids films are on the decline is the rise of CGI animated movies. Since Toy Story was a worldwide phenomenon in 1995 every studio has been fighting to duplicate that success. In 1998 Steven Spielberg's animation company DreamWorks got involved in the CGI game with their first CGI animated film Antz, which grossed $171 Million and since the success of Toy Story, Pixar has been the standard for CGI animation with films like Monster's Inc, Finding Nemo and Inside Out. DreamWorks is a close second with films like Shrek, Kung-Fu Panda, and The Croods and with other animation studios like Illumination and Laika getting in the game, it doesn't look like animation is dying at the box office anytime soon. But what does this mean for live action kids movies? It means that the genre will have to reinvent itself. One thing studios have to do is stop insulting kids intelligence with movies like Diary of a Wimpy Kid and give kids movies with story and depth that's the reason kids like the Marvel movies and all these CGI movies because they are not insulting their intelligence and it's the reason I liked movies like The Goonies and Home Alone. So if the live action kids movie doesn't change it will die.

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About the Creator

Mickell Ford

I Love Talking About Pop Culture and Other Useless Information.

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