Just to be clear, the top grossing movie so far this year: Super Mario Galaxy. And #3: Toy Story 5
In 2025 all the top 10 films were either 3D animation or CGI-heavy action, with one exception: F1 used a lot of practical effects.
Maybe the problem with Moana and Mandalorian is that even lazy uninformed movie-goers recognized an empty cash-grab when they saw the trailer.
I think the article is omitting animated features as they’re treated as family/children’s films, and not really held to the same standards as dramatic movies for adult audiences