Toy Story 3 is the Biggest Animated Movie of All Time

Posted by on August 16th, 2010   Filed under: Animation, Box Office, Industry News
Source: Cinematical

While this news will probably surprise absolutely no one, Pixar has finally reclaimed the record for highest grossing animated film this month thanks to their smash hit sequel Toy Story 3. Although the movie earned rave reviews across the board, it seems to have been quickly forgotten in favour of other more exciting summer movies like Christopher Nolan’s Inception. Still, the movie continued to make money steadily and last week surpassed Finding Nemo as the most successful Pixar movie to date. Now it has also officially dethroned Shrek 2 as the biggest animated movie release of all time.

It’s a bit hard to believe that Shrek 2 held the record for some six years previously, but with all the inflated 3-D ticket prices, it was bound to be defeated sooner rather than later. Toy Story 3 has just passed the $940 million mark worldwide, and it is also currently the highest grossing movie of 2010 domestically, although Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland still has a significant lead on it when you figure in international totals. Do you think Toy Story 3 deserves to be the most successful animated movie ever? Will any other movie (ahem… Harry Potter) have a shot at topping it in 2010?



  • The “Potter” movies seem to have a ceiling on them, so no, “Potter” won’t top “Toy Story 3″, at least not domestically. It may be the recipient of a bit of a bump for being part 1 of the final installment (making it not so very “final” at all), but not so much that it will make an extra 100 million or anything, as the other “Potter” movies seem to top out at or around the 300 mark. In fact, I think that the 2-part finale may affect the box office a little, as part 1 isn’t going to seem like as big of a deal with the REAL finale just around the corner, but overall, they’ll make much more money combined of course than 1 movie would have made on it’s own. That first part just won’t make as much as it COULD if it were just a one-shot finale. They can go with the “we needed to do 2 movies to do the book justice” bullshit all they want, but we all know that the real reason for extending the franchise to 8 movies is to make more money before it comes to an end, otherwise they would have been doing it earlier. I’m not much of a fan of the movies, and I haven’t read the books, but from what I’ve been told, the last film could have benefited from a longer treatment, as there was quite a bit cut out, and Warner Brothers wasn’t too concerned about it then.

  • Steve

    @ PlanBFromOuterSpace

    I too love the “We’re splitting it into 2 movies because there’s just TOO MUCH!” philosophy of Twilight 4, Hobbit, Harry Potter 7. It’s money grubbing at its most shameless. I find it extremely hard to believe that the very same team which made LOTR into 3 movies (with each individual book longer and deeper than The Hobbit) couldn’t somehow squeeze The Hobbit into a single film.

    The same goes for Harry Potter 7. Sure it’s one of the longest ones, but Books 4 and 5 were just as lengthy and turned into <2 hour films. For the past 6 movies, the filmmakers have been fine with leaving whole tomes on the cutting room floor but somehow they can't do it now?

  • troll2

    isnt AVATAR the highest grossing animated film of all time?

  • Haha good point!

  • sumaiya

    hey it was my birth at 17th august