There was a time when children considered a trip to the cinema a royal outing, the golden ticket of their week. The sight of popcorn tubs taller than their torsos and the novelty of watching Pixar spectacles on enormous screens felt unmatched. Parents endured the sticky seats because seeing Finding Nemo or Frozen in a darkened hall carried cultural weight. Yet the modern child, armed with streaming platforms and sofas, has exchanged grandeur for convenience, and that shift explains everything.

Animation has secured its greatest allegiance, but its not with theaters, forcing studios into the most undignified of rethinks.

In the latest installment of The Town with Matthew Belloni, the host Matthew Belloni and Lucas Shaw highlighted how family animation has found its strongest supporters at home rather than in traditional theaters. Children repeatedly rewatch titles on streaming platforms, transforming songs and characters into cultural staples. Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Encanto demonstrated this shift, earning modestly in cinemas during the pandemic but becoming a juggernaut once it landed on Disney Plus. Homes, not multiplexes, are sustaining long-term popularity.

The pattern is unavoidable: music gives animation a second, louder life in homes, eclipsing its theatrical shortcomings. What faltered in ticket sales has flourished in repetition, and children have embraced looping soundtracks like 'We Don't Talk About Bruno' as gospel, as revealed on the The Town. Studios are discovering that devotion is measured not in premieres but in the number of times a household presses “play.” Animated cinema has changed kingdoms, and the throne sits squarely within domestic walls.

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The clearest recent example of this shift comes from Netflix’s breakout animated hit, KPop Demon Hunters.

  In the peculiar magic show that is KPop Demon Hunters, it is not the action or the demon-slaying that steals the show, it is the songs. The film climbed to become Netflix’s most-watched ever, drawing in 236 million viewers. Its soundtrack is playing musical hopscotch across the charts, with four songs in the Billboard Hot 100 top ten and 'Golden' reigning supreme. The real spectacle lies not in its filmic adventure but in viewers lining up time and again, because the tunes demand an encore.  

That is precisely the trend that demands a rethink of theatrical-first thinking: the musical Honmoons of animation now blossom and endure in the streaming sphere, not solely on opening weekend. KPop Demon Hunters illustrates that when animation sings its way into repeat listening and household obsession, studios might do well to make playbacks, not premieres, their priority.

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Do you believe the future of family animation belongs to homes rather than theaters? Share your take in the comments down below.