Traditional vs. CGI Animation and recent results

[speck76]

This fall was a good and bad period for animation, depending on your point of view. This fall brought 4 animated films to the theaters in a short time period, 3 CGI films, and 1 traditional film.

A little comparison:

Format:
The Polar Express -CGI
The Incredibles -CGI
Spongebob Squarepants -Traditional
Shark Tale -CGI

Cost:
The Polar Express -$165million
The Incredibles -$92million
Spongebob Squarepants -$30million
Shark Tale -$75million

Critic Average Score:
The Polar Express -B
The Incredibles -A-
Spongebob Squarepants -B
Shark Tale -C+

Gross ticket sales to date (Domestic/Total):
The Polar Express -$100.238million/$124.438million
The Incredibles -$227.536million/$332.136million
Spongebob Squarepants -$69.239million/$70.299million
Shark Tale -$159.193million/$307.935million

A few notes:
The Polar Express -Budget was high due to new technology developed for film, continues to sell many tickets. Movie based on a childrens book.
The Incredibles -Probably the most targeted Pixar film, is lacking staying power of previous Pixar films
Spongebob Squarepants -Costs were about 1/3 of a typical traditionally animated film. Based on a high rated TV show. Movie was the last to premier, but is not performing at the B.O.
Shark Tale -Movie had many famous voices, and has been out for about 1 month longer than the other films.

Now, this is my opinion.

Spongebob has grossed far less than the other 3 movies, but yet has made money, as it had the lowest production costs. (To be fair, the movie did not feature great animation at all either.....it looks like a small-budget film) My feeling is that other studios will see this and may dive back into traditional animation, but it will be done on the cheap (Like the upcoming Hemelump movie)....any major features will be produced with CGI, as it has yet to be proven a loser. (Polar Express had the highest CGI costs ever due to new technology....Dinosaur is #2, but also used new technology)

 

[DarkMeasures]

Well, it will make an end to the high detailed traditional animation films. But I should point out, that if America's traditional animation films were done the way Japanese Tranditional films are done now, there probably wont be a sacrifice of detail for cheap.

About halfway through the 90's Japanese animation studios started animating their films differently. It is an oxymoron but most Japanese Traditional Animation films are now done almost completly with computers. That is the reason why there is a huge jump in the quality of animes that have come out recently. I think if America used that model, traditional animation could make a huge comeback.