Just to be clear, the top grossing movie so far this year: Super Mario Galaxy. And #3: Toy Story 5
In 2025 all the top 10 films were either 3D animation or CGI-heavy action, with one exception: F1 used a lot of practical effects.
Maybe the problem with Moana and Mandalorian is that even lazy uninformed movie-goers recognized an empty cash-grab when they saw the trailer.
I think the article is omitting animated features as they’re treated as family/children’s films, and not really held to the same standards as dramatic movies for adult audiences
But Moana and the Mandalorian are family/children's films.
And there were plenty of movies made "the hard way" that tanked at the box office.
"Crime 101", "Mercy", and "28 Years Later: The Bone Temple" are three prominent star-driven, big-budget live-action movies that failed to turn a profit at the box office so far in 2026.
In addition to CG fatigue I think users are having remake fatigue. Audiences don't want to see a Moana remake, another Marvel movie or another Superman spin-off. Star Wars and Marvel are getting so overexposed people aren't bothering to show up for them to theaters.
Isnt The Odyssey the ultimate remake?
There’s a clear thread of human effort and presence from The Muppets to Space Jam to Dune that this Odyssey movie’s creators understood. People want Amelié, not Avengers. It’s fine to use so much CGI that your film can’t be re-exported in 4K (yes, that’s why) so long as you have people wearing stuff and standing in front of other stuff. It’s not fine to film your entire movie with mocap bodysuits on green backgrounds and having them perform to a tennis ball as co-actor that will be AI-generated from a dead actor later. I probably won’t watch the Odyssey but I will absolutely celebrate this aspect of it to others now that I know.
No, everyone just watches Nolan movies because he's seen as a director who can do no wrong. It says nothing about CGI.
Yeah it's just the big budget movie with the non-stop marketing. It's everywhere.
It doesn't hurt that the reviews from both the viewers and the critics are really good.
People pay a premium for hand-made over factory-made.
It’s too early to make a conclusion but its an interesting hypothesis.
It's one of the greatest stories of all time directed by Nolan. CGI or not, whatever.
On the specific no/low-CGI bent — I find the obsession with using this (mostly false) claim so utterly disrespectful to the people in VFX that have poured thousands upon thousands of hours of their lives into the craft, only to be actively derided (or outright denied) by producers hoping to capitalise on whatever this weird obsession is.
For anyone that hasn’t seen it but is interested in the topic, this series is HIGHLY worth a watch:
“NO CGI” is really just INVISIBLE CGI - 1
https://youtu.be/7ttG90raCNo
For anyone without the time: my biggest takeaway when I first watched this was: audiences certainly like the idea of practical effects, so both media outlets and productions are incentivized to talk up every practical element, right up to the point of outright deception. In reality it's very common for stuff to be filmed "for real" and then painted over or extended with CGI anyways because having the reference footage helps the CGI so much. This way you can have your actors go on the talk show circuit and say "those are real tulips" or whatever and have good CGI at the same time.
Exactly, Nolan's use of CGI is perfect. Elegant and purposeful, and incredibly well executed.
What we want are good movies, not fast food entertainment.
Is that really the take away?
I think the real take away is that audiences want good movies. The Odyssey is a good movie - it just so happens to be made the hard way.
(Or, in other words, correlation does not imply causation, and that's all this article has.)
WE. JUST. WANT. GOOD. STORIES. WELL. TOLD.