Universal
Think of your favorite holiday movies as a kid: "Elf," "The Santa Clause," "It's A Wonderful Life," "Home Alone." What do they all have in common? Real people! They're live-action, not animated.
In fact, when you think back to some of your most cherished movies as a kid, assuming you were a kid before the year 2000 — I bet a lot of them are also not animated. "E.T.," "Honey I Shrunk the Kids," "The Parent Trap" (both versions!), "The Sandlot," "The Mighty Ducks," "The Goonies," "Newsies," Hocus Pocus," "The Princess Bride," "The Bad News Bears." And on and on and on.
I don't want to sound like a grump or overly nostalgic — but too many kids' movies these days are animated. I wish Hollywood were producing more live-action kids' movies! You know, with real people!
Please don't mistake this for disparaging the art of animation. I also believe that, overall, kids' movies are far better than when I was a kid. The average kids' movie in 1985 was probably fairly intolerable for an adult; whereas now I am perfectly happy to watch even the most average Pixar or Illumination movie with my kids. "Hotel Transylvania 2?" Totally enjoyable! "Boss Baby?" Fine by me! "Despicable Me 4?" You know what, it's really funny!
I appreciate that animation can create worlds and do things that could never be done in live-action, even with special effects. "Kung Fu Panda" or "Inside Out" simply wouldn't work if they weren't animated, and they're delightful.
In the decades since I was a kid, animated movies for kids have become studio blockbusters. "Inside Out 2," "Frozen II," "The Lion King (2019)," and "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" are in the top 20 highest-grossing movies of all time.
These tentpole films are expensive to make and take years of animation work. (For better or worse, it's possible that AI could make the process cheaper and faster.) There's also a low end of this — if you've ever seen some of the crummy animated movies that are straight to streaming platforms … yikes.
The movie business has changed radically because of streaming, and kids' content has been affected in specific ways. No one buys DVDs anymore, and that used to be a big revenue stream for certain genres like comedies and family movies. Now, it means that a movie generally has to earn a lot during its opening weekend. Hence, more sequels, even for animated kids' fare: Franchises are a safer bet.
This is the reason that for adult films, we see fewer romcoms, comedies, and smart dramas than we did 10 years ago, and more action movies and franchises. That same dynamic is playing out with family movies, too. You can imagine why a studio would rather do another "Frozen" movie than take a risk on something weird like "Mrs. Doubtfire."
The business reasons make sense. But I think kids are missing out if they're not seeing many live-action movies or TV shows — they're not seeing real actors showing emotions or real-world situations playing out. Seeing real kids, real adults, speaking, moving, even singing — that's a different kind of experience. I would posit that seeing real humans on film is important for young viewers to become true movie lovers, and to experience the pleasures of the art of film.
A good movie is a transformative and magical experience — and yes, animated movies can achieve this — but there's something to be said about the magic that real, live acting can bring.
I just wish more of these amazing live-action family movies were being made today.
When I browse the streaming services for movies for my preschool and elementary-age kids, I find that nearly all the movies available are animated. The rare live-action ones tend to be older movies from the '90s, probably put there to appease millennial parents.
(I would like to give a brief shoutout to the rare Netflix original live-action kids movie, "Yes Day," starring Jennifer Garner. It's delightful and a family-pleaser.)
I can't make the movie business work differently, but I can suggest something to my fellow millennial parents of young kids who want to find more good live-action movies to watch: Try your local library's DVD section. I've discovered that there are tons of good '90s and early '00s live-action movies out there that simply aren't on streaming services.
A hidden bonus feature of watching real DVDs instead of streaming is that it eliminates the thing where you open Netflix, and your kids see the thumbnail for a show they've already watched three times and start begging to watch it again.
I've been doing a fairly regular family movie night with my kids with my own hidden agenda: I get to pick the movie, and I always pick live-action movies. So far, it's been a success with my kids and I've even enjoyed movies I hadn't seen since I was a kid, like "Free Willy." It's enough to hold us over until "Paddington 3" comes out.
