Dear Hollywood, It's Ok to Advertise Animated Movies Based on Their Merit, Not On Their Actors

I know this is a bit like beating a dead horse at this point, but Hollywood needs to start letting animated movies stand on their own merit. It’s ok if you don’t have big, A list actors in your lead roles. That’s not to say that it is always a bad idea, for example I thought Chris Pratt did a perfectly good job in The LEGO Movie, but I’m not so sure about him playing the role of Mario, especially when the current voice of Mario is also doing voice work for the movie.

Do executives think that people aren’t going to take a chance on the Mario Movie if they don’t have big name actors as the voices? Mario is popular enough and well-known enough that you could hire voice actors no one has ever heard of and people would still flock to the movie theaters when it comes out.

Animation is a great medium for storytelling. Honestly, more movies and TV shows should be animated, but that’s a rant for another day. Animated movies can be made or broken by the voice work, so hire people who can actually do voice acting. A lot of big name actors can do an ok job with voice work because they can obviously act, but when you start to compare their performances with great voice actors, it’s a night and day difference. So please, stop hiring people for your movie just for name recognition.

This video perfectly encapsulates how executives think people react when they hear about A list actors being cast in animated movies.