Paramount-Warner Bros. movie slate needs animation to rival Disney, Universal

When Paramount Skydance combines with the Warner Bros. film studio, it’ll have a deep bench of marquee franchises and established prestige. What the powerhouse duo will be missing is an animated film slate that could rival Hollywood giants like Disney and Universal.

The combined entity, which is still awaiting regulatory approval, has a stacked slate of tentpoles including DC superhero fare, a Minecraft sequel, another Sonic the Hedgehog film and new entrants from The Lord of the Rings universe. Not to mention, Warner Bros. just tied the record for the most Academy Award wins for a single studio earlier this month.

But it’s been kid-friendly animated content that is increasingly driving families to the theater — and neither studio has excelled in this area in the last decade.

Since 2016, Paramount and Warner Bros. have each released eight animated features on the big screen, with Paramount generating $1.1 billion in total global ticket sales from the category and Warner Bros. tallying $1.3 billion, according to data from Comscore.

During that time, only one Paramount animated film has generated more than $200 million globally — 2023’s “Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie” — and only one Warner Bros. animated title has scored more than $300 million globally — 2017’s “Lego Batman.”

For comparison, in the last decade Disney released 21 theatrical animated features, collecting $14.1 billion from the films; Universal released 23 animated movies to the tune of $10.7 billion; and Sony released 16, bringing in $4.6 billion in ticket sales.

Disney has seen seven animated features generate more than $1 billion globally during that time, and Universal has seen two.

These figures do not include live-action films with animated elements like Paramount’s Sonic franchise, Universal’s “Gabby’s Dollhouse,” or Disney’s “Mufasa: The Lion King,” which the studio considers a live-action film. They also don’t include animated films released to streaming during the pandemic that were later brought to theaters like Disney’s “Soul,” “Luca” and “Turning Red.”

“When the moviegoing world is operating at or near peak efficiency, it’s virtually always because of a diverse release slate that includes one or more movies catering heavily to kids and families,” said Shawn Robbins, director of analytics at Fandango and founder of Box Office Theory. “Animation, in most cases, directly serves that audience while providing an anchor for studios and cinema owners to rely on.”

Together, Paramount and Warner Bros. accounted for 27% of the domestic box office in 2025, just shy of the 28% market share held by Disney.

“As Paramount and Warner Bros. merge, it becomes even more essential for their combined resources to be strategically directed toward developing a robust animated film portfolio,” said Paul Dergarabedian, head of marketplace trends at Comscore.

“Animated film releases are crucial for any movie studio, requiring a well-thought-out strategy whether the projects are original works, extensions of existing intellectual property, or reboots of beloved legacy franchises,” he added.

In the last two years, family-friendly fare with a PG rating has won at the box office, outperforming PG-13 and R rated films, Comscore data shows.

“This rating is significant because it allows these films to attract a broader audience, making them true four-quadrant releases with the highest box office potential of almost any genre in today’s movie marketplace,” Dergarabedian said.

Additionally, animated features are not usually front-loaded at the box office, Robbins noted, meaning they steadily generate ticket sales over the course of their run in theaters, gaining word of mouth.

A typical Hollywood film will see a 50% to 70% drop in sales from opening weekend to the second weekend after the rush to the theater fades. Animated features don’t always experience the same cliff.

For Disney’s “Hoppers,” for example, the opening week dropoff was less than 37%, and the second week drop was less than 38%.

“Not all animated releases are as successful as others, but they can be incredibly valuable with their potential for long-tail grosses alongside ancillary revenues via merchandising, down-window rentals and purchases, and other non-theatrical financial opportunities,” Robbins added.

Working in Paramount’s and Warner Bros.’s favor: They already have lucrative animated IP. The combined library features SpongeBob SquarePants, Smurfs, Paw Patrol, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and DC superheroes.

Disney and Universal have been successful in the last decade balancing new titles with sequels. For Disney, it has introduced stories like “Coco,” “Zootopia” and “Encanto” alongside “Frozen II,” “Toy Story 4” and “Inside Out 2.” At Universal, it’s had newcomers like “Sing,” “The Secret Life of Pets” and “Migration” arrive at the box office and returning favorites like “Kung Fu Panda 4,” “Despicable Me 4” and “The Bad Guys 2.”

“It will be important for a freshly minted Paramount/WBD combo to not only expand on these brands but also to develop new animated properties to have the best shot at capturing their share of the massive potential box office for this extremely popular and competitive category of film,” Dergarabedian said.

Disclosure: Versant is the parent company of CNBC and Fandango.