‘Tis the season to binge every Christmas movie ever made. With the big day just next week, streaming audiences everywhere are rewatching their favorite festive films to get into the holiday spirit. In particular, two versions of the same classic Christmas story are stealing the limelight on streaming right now. In case that clue didn’t give it away, the movies in question are 2000’s How The Grinch Stole Christmas and 2018’s The Grinch.
As per Flix Patrol, both the Jim Carrey live-action flick and its animated reboot (featuring the voice of Benedict Cumberbatch) are the top two titles on Amazon in the United States today. It seems that folks never tire of Dr. Seuss’ tale about the green grouch with a heart two sizes too small who learns the error of his ways after almost ruining Christmas for the town of Whoville.
2000’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas stars an unrecognizable Carrey in the lead role. Not only was it the first cinematic adaptation of the book, following the legendary 1960s TV special with Boris Karloff, but it was also the very first time one of Seuss’ works had been turned into a feature-length film. From director Ron Howard, the picture was a huge hit at the time, earning $345.1 million at the box office. However, its animated successor ended up blowing it out of the water.
In 2018, Minions creators Illumination released The Grinch, an animated retelling of the yarn with Cumberbatch in the lead. Though reviews were slightly mixed if generally favorable, the reboot raked it $511.8 million worldwide, making it the highest-grossing Christmas movie of all time, finally breaking the record set by Home Alone back in 1990. We’ll have to see if it takes another 30 years for something else to beat The Grinch‘s gross.
