Family-friendly films await in 2025

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Friday, January 17th.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: a preview of movies for kids and families debuting in 2025.

2024 was supposed to be a really terrible year for the entertainment business.

With writers’ and actors’ strikes, there weren’t as many movies in the pipeline as are typical. Analysts predicted poor profits for both studios and theater owners.

But as it turned out, the fears were overblown and what saved Hollywood’s bottom line surprised people.

JOY: Orange? Who made the console orange?

ANGER: Do I look orange?

FEAR: I didn’t touch it.

ENVY: Orange is not my color.

SADNESS: Not me.

ANXIETY: Hello everybody!

[Screams]

BROWN: Inside Out 2 kicked things off as the highest grossing film of the year, and four of the other five top films were family oriented, three of those animated.

So will the family-movie genre be able to continue the hot streak?

Arts and culture editor Collin Garbarino has a preview of some upcoming family films that seem promising.

COLLIN GARBARINO: A new installment in a beary charming franchise arrives next month when Paddington in Peru debuts on Valentine’s Day. Paddington and Paddington 2 are both excellent movies, so I’m excited to see what happens when Paddington and the Brown family leave London to visit Paddington’s Aunt Lucy in darkest Peru.

PADDINGTON: Oh, not at all. Thank you for having me.

Even though the franchise has a new director, fans in the UK, where the film’s already come out, are giving it a thumbs up.

In March, moviegoers will get a live-action remake of the original Disney princess Snow White. But I’m feeling pretty skeptical about this new adaptation. It’s been delayed by a year, and it’s been the source of controversy from the very beginning. Some fans didn’t appreciate Disney’s casting of Latina actress Rachel Zegler in the title role. Then, Zegler didn’t endear herself to fans of the 1937 cartoon when she disparaged it in an interview.

ZEGLER: There’s a big focus on her love story with a guy who literally stalks her. Weird! Weird! So we didn’t do that this time.

There was even a kerfuffle over how Disney would depict the dwarfs. The studio has opted for animated dwarfs with big heads. To be honest, they’re a little grotesque. We’ll have to see if this adaptation finds an audience.

I think two other live-action adaptations of animated classics will have a better shot of drawing crowds. In May, Disney will release Lilo & Stitch, and in June, DreamWorks will release How to Train Your Dragon.

HICCUP: Dad, I can’t kill dragons.

Lilo & Stitch debuted in 2002 and How to Train Your Dragon in 2010 and interestingly, both of the films were the products of the same creative team, Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois. It’s probably a good sign for the remakes that Sanders decided to once again supply the voice work for the blue koala-like alien Stitch and DeBlois agreed to direct the new version of How to Train Your Dragon.

These sequels and remakes that blend live-action with computer-generated effects will get plenty of attention this year, but there are also a few animated family movies that might be worthwhile.

After taking the box office crown in 2024 with its Inside Out sequel, Pixar seems to be back on track. Lately the studio has been alternating fresh ideas with franchise films. So this June, we’ll get Elio, a movie about an 11-year-old boy who gets mistakenly picked up by space aliens who think he’s Earth’s ambassador to the rest of the universe. Sounds like a fun idea.

QUESTA: I am Questa, leader of Gom.

FELIX: Felix, leader of Feluvenum.

ALIEN: And you’re the leader of?

ELIO: Uh? Earth?

ALIEN: Hear that, everyone? It’s the leader of, Uh Earth!

ELIO: Uh-oh.

I hope Pixar resists the temptation to slip in a political agenda.

Studios think fresh ideas are risky, so we’re also getting a couple of sequels to some recent kids films.

In the fall, Disney will release Zootopia 2. It’s hard to believe it’s been eight years since the original came out. I thought the movie’s worldview was a little muddled, but I still found it enjoyable. In this new adventure, the optimistic bunny cop Judy once again teams up with the rascally fox Nick to solve a crime.

And not to be outdone in the animal-caper genre, DreamWorks will be offering The Bad Guys 2. The original movie told the story of how a group of villainous animals led by the Big Bad Wolf turned over a new leaf.

MR. WOLF: Now that we’ve had some time to get acquainted, we’re not so scary now are we? Webs, hit it.

In this new installment, the so-called Bad Guys get dragged into another caper by a criminal gang known as the Bad Girls. The first movie was probably my favorite animated film of 2022, so I’m looking forward to this one.

Of course, I haven’t seen any of these films yet, so I’m not recommending any of them. But the list looks promising. Maybe Hollywood is finally getting the message that the path to profitability lies in making movies that families can enjoy together.

I’m Collin Garbarino.

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