Why Family Movies Are a Safer Box Office Bet Than Superheroes Right Now

As we near the middle of the summer movie season, it appears that most the big blockbusters for older audiences have come and gone. None of these major releases – including Marvel’s Thunderbolts*, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, Ballerina, and M3GAN 2.0 – has been a box office success. The range of revenue earnings for these films varied from “fine” to “flop.”

The major successes this summer thus far have been family movies based on, oddly enough, the Chris Sanders/Dean DeBlois live action film adaptations: Lilo & Stitch (2025), which is nearing the billion-dollar mark, and How to Train Your Dragon (2025), which is on its way to cross $500 million. Despite being released in the spring, A Minecraft Movie has earned almost $1 billion, making it one of the year’s highest grossing movies along with Lilo & Stitch. 

This all begs the question of why are family films proving to be more successful than your usual stream of blockbusters? We have some theories. 

Intergenerational Appeal

The zoomers and millennials who grew up with those popular IPs — Lilo & Stitch, HTTYD, Freakier Friday, and Minecraft—either are very much still interested in those properties or have kids of their own and are in need of family entertainment. Granted, stronger iterations (the originals) are still accessible, but I digress. The intergenerational element has been consistent too. Since I was a kid, Hollywood has always been able to take old properties and revitalize them for a new generation. Ask any person around my age, and they’ll attribute the James Gunn-penned Scooby-Doo adaptation as one of their childhood classics (as well as a staple of their bisexuality). The original and well-loved stories we grew up with are now being made with big budgets. Nevertheless, only the most expensive family films are released in theaters, while those priced below $50 million are disregarded as streamer fodder.  

Today, in the streaming era, the notion of a theatrical mid-budget family film is nonexistent, and the “family movie” has a significantly different definition. Before you had your mid-budget fare, TV-to-movie adaptations, live action adaptations, original 2D animated movies, and the BIG new 3D-CG flick (since 3D animated movies were still in their peach fuzz era). With the age of streaming, however, a mid-budget family movie has to fight like hell to make it to a theatrical space.

It’s ironic that Disney, who singlehandedly crushed the mid-budget space when dissolving the mid-budget-oriented Fox 2000 Pictures in the Fox acquisition, gets to “bring it back” with their upcoming comedy Freakier Friday sequel. Now they include PG-13 comic book adaptations, live action versions of modern animated classics, your well-known TV/Game/Comic IPs, and Pixar and DreamWorks tentpoles. Even then, success is fleeting, as the direct-to-Disney+ releases of Soul, Luca, and Turning Red diminished the audience’s perception of original Pixar films. That, along with poor marketing and extensive rewrites, helps to explain why their latest outing, Elio, has performed poorly at the box office. 

Plus, lack of studio confidence in “out there” original projects usually means they wind up at a streamer such as Sony Animation’s KPop Demon Hunters, which would have likely made the same amount of money in theaters as it’s become a juggernaut for Netflix.

Kids Need to Leave the House

Let’s be honest, you’re not going to see your average nuclear family going to the theater to watch Ana de Armas violently steamroll adversaries. Going to the movie theater is an event for families. To bring the kids to see the latest major release is a significant bonding experience that comes at an increasingly hefty price. Still, the price is often worth paying because it’s fun for the kids to get out of the house and make memories that will last a lifetime. Some of my fondest memories as a kid were with my late dad taking me to see so many family flicks including Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days, Paranorman, and even The Last Airbender, (the whole crowd boo’ed at the end), among others, in theaters during my upbringing. 

Kids deserve to have a frequent theatrical experience for many reasons. It can teach them proper etiquette for when they come of age to see movies on their own. Plus, it can introduce them to the brilliance of filmmaking and why it’s such a treasured art form. One of the most valuable components of movies is the ability to tell a story, and it should not be restricted to adults, even as children age. 

Some People Just Don’t Care for Superhero Movies

There is a large demographic of people who don’t care for superhero flicks or have grown out of them. Superhero fatigue is real. As of this writing, there have been 36 movies in the MCU, making it difficult to keep up with a nearly 20-year franchise. Now with Superman and The Fantastic Four: First Steps on the horizon, only time can tell how successful those will be, as they would definitely appeal to young audiences more so than your Thunderbolts. 

Additionally, there’s the fact that Gunn’s Superman is the second iteration of the Man of Steel within the 21st century and First Steps is the Fantastic Four’s third. Plus, a lot of the content within these superhero movies is inappropriate for younger kids. Hence, that PG-13 rating. 

What doesn’t go out of style, though, is nostalgia. Despite there being little original family offering, a millennial or Gen Z’er seeing their childhood regurgitated to them in a more corporate, artless fashion does at least pique their interest. That said, curiosity winds up becoming a movie ticket for someone in addition to the family. This goes all the way back to appealing to people of all ages. 

Bring Back More Theatrical Variety for Family Films

One of my biggest gripes when viewing a tentpole family film in a theater—in a non-press screening space—is dealing with the trailers attached. Whereas you had nothing but studio offerings when I was a kid, previews now are the cinematic equivalent of shovelware featuring numerous trailers for low-budget movies made by small production companies or faith-based studios, one increasingly cringier than the last. You wouldn’t believe how many times I saw the dreaded Ryan’s World movie trailer last year. 

Studio theatrical family movies used to be rampant in the early 2000s, particularly during the summer. In 2002, Scooby-Doo, Lilo & Stitch (the good one), Like Mike, The Powerpuff Girls Movie, Stuart Little 2, and Hey Arnold: The Movie all released in the span of a month! 

With blockbuster action movies for older audiences firmly in place, I implore studios to get rid of the streamer emphasis model and put family flicks back in theaters again. They’re a safer bet, and children’s interest will give them a spark for moviegoing, forming mini-cinephile in the making. My desire to become a film critic and write reviews was ignited when I went to see Scorsese’s Hugo in 3D with my father. Superhero blockbusters aren’t as valuable or meaningful as family movies, and kids deserve more sophisticated movies all year long.