4 ms·
The Disney Renaissance and birth of DreamWorks animated studios during the 1990s and into the early aughts showed that this thinking was backwards and wrong. Co
by unlinked_dll 7y ago
The Disney Renaissance and birth of DreamWorks animated studios during the 1990s and into the early aughts showed that this thinking was backwards and wrong. Commercial and critical success was built upon hiring big name Hollywood actors to lend their voices.
And some of them were exceptionally talented, like Robin Williams or Michael Meyers. Others, like Eddie Murphy, Gilbert Gottfried, Cameron Diaz - they were hired for their voice and their name on the billing. And it worked, it still works, and major productions today don't throw $100 million at a project without stars attached. That'd be crazy.
- fiblye 7y agoAll of the people you listed have recognizable voices with a history in comedy and they were performing comedy roles in their respective animated films. Just picking big name actors for a cartoon won't really do much. Everybody knows Tom Cruise by his performances on screen, but people probably won't be throwing down $15 to hear him as a talking donkey like they would with Eddie Murphy.
- kriro 7y agoAs a counterpoint I'd argue that these movies are usually also successful in countries where they are screened in non-English. Those voice actors are usually unknown to the general audience (one could argue that they are often the associated voice for the given big name actor but that's not always the case). At least in Germany, animated movies are rarely advertised as "featuring X" whereas in the U.S. I saw the names of the voices in advertisements.
- Shorel 7y agoThat only works for English speaking viewers. I couldn't care less who voiced the Spanish version of the genie, and animated movies are huge internationally.