Animated family films can typically be relied on to perform well at the box office, because it’s easy enough to park the kids in front of the big screen for a couple of hours to keep them occupied. However, the best examples of the genre are the ones that appeal to audiences of all ages, something that a lot of the more mediocre titles tend to forget.
Pixar mastered the art a long time ago, while Walt Disney Animation and Sony Pictures Animation have been getting better, but DreamWorks have always been much more hit-or-miss. Outside of Shrek, How to Train Your Dragon and Madagascar, the outfit haven’t been able to build many franchises either, which is why a lot of people have probably forgotten all about Abominable already.
Almost the very definition of solid-yet-unspectacular, the chilly adventure hit theaters in September 2019, going on to earn $189 million globally on a $75 million budget, securing a Rotten Tomatoes score of 81%. Chloe Bennet stars as Yi, who discovers a Yeti on the roof of her building, before they head off on a journey to reunite the creature with its family.
There’s a wealthy financier and a zoologist on their tale, and you can pretty much guess how things go from there. It may be predictable, but Abominable has become the latest surprise hit on Netflix this week, having jumped almost a dozen places on the most-watched list as per FlixPatrol.
