Disney Revival

The Disney Revival refers to a predicted era beginning in 2009 with the release of The Princess and the Frog and extending to the present during which Walt Disney Animation Studios returned to making successful animated feature films. The animated features released so far during this period include: The Princess and the Frog (2009), Tangled (2010), Winnie the Pooh (2011), Wreck-It Ralph (2012), Frozen (2013) and Big Hero 6 (2014).

History
The Disney Renaissance (1989-1999) is well-known as the era of success after arguably 22 years of modest successes and disapointments (the studio famously declined in successes after Walt Disney's death, more specifically after the release of monumentally popular The Jungle Book). After the release of The Lion King, Disney began to decline in popularity and success again. While the post-Lion King Renaissance movies (Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Mulan and Tarzan) all did modestly well at the box office overall, however, the critical and audience reactions to them were not equivocal to those of the earlier Renaissance movies such as The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King.

In the early 2000's, Disney didn't release any hugely successful animated movies (though some did better than others, such as Lilo & Stitch) for almost an entire decade, mainly because of weak box office results due to the rising popularity of computer-animated movies as well as poor critical and audience reactions. In 2005, the company decided to make their first CG animated movie Chicken Little, which, despite being financially successful, was jeered by critics and audiences alike. The following release, Meet the Robinsons, recieved similar (if not as bad) reception. However, Bolt was received well and was the sign of things to come with mostly good reviews and grossed more than Robinsons.

John Lasseter took over the animation division with Disney's purchase of Pixar in 2006, after which Disney announced that they would return to traditional animation with the 2009 release of The Princess and the Frog, which was largely well received by critics and audiences alike even though it was a modest financial success (grossing over $270 million). However, because the film didn't do as well as Disney had hoped, Disney changed their marketing drastically for the movies that followed (Rapunzel was re-titled Tangled in an effort to make it more gender-neutral). In fact, many people have questioned if the film was a success at all and deserves to be recognized as part of the era, since the film didn't establish a Renaissance in the same way that The Little Mermaid did in 1989. For example, Tom Sito (a film professor at the University of Southern California) stated that the film's success was more equivocal to the success of The Great Mouse Detective as a step up improvement from Disney's major downfall (in Mouse Detective 's case, The Black Cauldron). The fact is that the overrall success of the movies that followed towered The Princess and the Frog. However, because this was a traditionally-animated musical fairytale, as well as starring a popular and ground-breaking Disney princess (being the first African-American Disney Princess), and restablishes the classic formula the studio is famous for, as well as setting the stage for films to follow, the majority justifiably agrees that it still deserves to be part of the era.

After The Princess and the Frog, Disney released the 2010 film Tangled, Disney's 50th Animated Feature, marking a new direction for the studio, blending 3D CGI animation with traditional techniques. Following the tradition of the 1990s animated films, Tangled was a musical fairytale loosely based on the story of Rapunzel, who became the most popular Disney Princess since Jasmine. The film was a huge critical and commercial success and Disney Animation's first CG film to do so, earning more than $500 million worldwide and reigniting interest in Walt Disney Animation Studios, similarly to The Little Mermaid and Cinderella, as they were also huge successful "experiments" after a long period of disapointments. The film also sold exceedingly well on Blu-Ray (as did Wreck-It Ralph and Frozen), bringing up the possibility of the three films being placed in the Disney Vault.

In 2012, after the releases of Tangled and the 2011 film Winnie the Pooh (which was a financial disappointment, partially due to being overshadowed by Warner Bros' Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, despite being the best-reviewed animated film of 2011), Disney released Wreck-It Ralph, which garnered huge critical and commercial success similar to that of Tangled. For a non-musical, Ralph was arguably their most popular, acclaimed and financially successful since 1961's One Hundred and One Dalmatians. It was nominated for Best Animated Feature at the Oscars and The Golden Globes (but infamously lost to Disney/Pixar's Brave). Unlike any of the other movies in this era, it is currently the only one to receive a rumored full-length sequel, which is now possibly in development.

The Revival Era reached new heights in 2013 with the release of Frozen, which won Best Animated Feature at the Golden Globes, Annies and Critics' Choice Movie Awards, as well as Best Song for "Let It Go". The film also became the first in the Canon series to earn $1 billion (winding up with $1.274 billion ($248 million in Japan alone (where it was #1 for 16 consecutive weekends)) and only the second animated feature to do so (the other being Disney/Pixar's Toy Story 3). The film also won 2 Oscars for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song. Some have even praised it as the best Disney musical since The Lion King. Its success establishes that Disney is in a new era.

In April 2014, TimeOut New York ranked Top 100 Greatest Animated Films of All Time based on the rankings of over 100 critics, animators, and experts in the field of animation. Three of the revival films made the list: Frozen ranked at number 67, Wreck-It Ralph ranked at number 56, and Tangled ranked at number 54.

The first canon film using Marvel characters, Big Hero 6, premiered in theaters on November 7, 2014. After the early screenings, the reviews for the film were very positive. Rotten Tomatoes reports that 88% of critics gave it positive reviews.

Critical/Audience reactions
Currently, Winnie the Pooh has the highest ratings on Rotten Tomatoes, while Big Hero 6 has the highest rating on both Metacritic and IMDB.

The Princess and the Frog, however, has the lowest rating on both Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB, while Tangled has the lowest rating according to Metacritic.