This Stop-Motion Cult Favorite Just Made a Surprise Leap Up Disney’s Top 10
Disney’s streaming chart tends to lean heavily on franchise names and recent blockbusters, which makes it stand out whenever something a little stranger and more handmade manages to break through. This week’s lineup is proof that Disney+ subscribers are not just chasing the newest release, they are also digging into some of the platform’s more offbeat animated offerings.
Leading the pack is ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’, with a trio of stop motion titles from Laika also making noise further down the list, a reminder that the studio behind some of the most distinctive animated films of the last two decades still commands genuine loyalty from viewers.
Among them, ‘The Boxtrolls’ is having its biggest moment yet on the chart, jumping three spots after just one day of tracked movement to land at number seven, right alongside fellow Laika titles ‘Coraline’ at number two and ‘ParaNorman’ at number three.
Released in 2014, ‘The Boxtrolls’ was directed by Graham Annable and Anthony Stacchi in their feature directorial debuts, and loosely adapted from Alan Snow’s novel ‘Here Be Monsters!’. The story follows a young orphaned boy raised by underground cave dwelling trash collectors known as the Boxtrolls, who must save his adoptive family from a scheming exterminator determined to wipe them out for a shot at town council power.
The voice cast leaned heavily on British talent, featuring Ben Kingsley as the villainous Archibald Snatcher alongside Elle Fanning, Isaac Hempstead Wright, Toni Collette, Jared Harris, Nick Frost, Richard Ayoade, Tracy Morgan and Simon Pegg. The film went on to earn an Academy Award nomination, cementing its place among Laika’s more celebrated projects even if it is often considered a step below the studio’s biggest hits.
Critics were mixed but largely charmed, praising the film’s meticulous stop motion craftsmanship and darker, less sanitized sense of humor compared to more mainstream family animation. Laika has built its entire identity on that willingness to get weirder and moodier than its competitors, and ‘The Boxtrolls’ fits squarely into that tradition alongside its studio siblings currently climbing the same chart.
Seeing three Laika films clustered together on Disney’s Top 10 says a lot about how well this kind of handcrafted, slightly macabre animation has aged with audiences. What is it about Cheesebridge and its box wearing residents that keeps pulling viewers back for another watch?
