Minions, Secret Life of Pets and Ice Age make obscene amounts of money and 'resonate' with kids too. Will Big Hero 6 or Tangled really stick out in the sea of these other animated films grossing nearly a billion each in 20 years? They are still closer to Dreamworks than say, Pixar, Ghibli or Laika at this point.
Those are mostly good films. They do resonate with kids (and adults). They're a different flavor than Disney films, but they're good in their own unique ways and resonate with kids in a different way too. Kids are not monolithic and are allowed to like two things that aren't similar.
Tangled already did stick out in a sea of other animated films and was highly successful. More importantly, it's still successful and making a splash. Seven years after its debut, it's still selling Rapunzel dolls at a solid pace and it's got an on-going animated show debuting in 2017 with the original cast.
So is Big Hero 6, for that matter. It's also getting an on-going TV show on Disney in 2017.
Just because something is popular for a moment doesn't mean it'll remain popular. Shrek 2 was once the most successful animated film ever, and the Shrek franchise has cooled considerably since then, and a lot of its self-referential humor hasn't held up well. Disney doesn't play the short-game; they play the long-game.
Folks even tend to forget that Frozen didn't debut at #1. It wasn't breaking records upon its debut. It was like The Little Mermaid, rarely climbing the charts but just holding steady and strong for weeks and weeks and months and months. Big, record-breaking blockbusters debuted at #1... and then dropped off charts, and there Frozen was, hanging on at #3 and #4 for months on end. It was STILL in the top 10 by the time the Blu-Ray hit stores.
That's the testament to a Disney film... not its box office records, but its longevity. It's hard to say what the legacy of the new Renaissance will be years from now, since we're still living it and it's still fairly recent, but already it's shaping up to be something timeless in the same way Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and The Little Mermaid were to a generation of kids.
The wife and I walked through the Walmart toy aisle yesterday shopping for my cousins, and it's packed full of Frozen dolls, Big Hero 6 action figures, and Zootopia merchandise. There's Rapunzel dolls right alongside Mulan and Belle dolls.
It's not even remotely my favorite Disney film, but Tangled I'm fairly confident in saying has cemented its place as a Disney classic. Frozen, on the other hand, is still a merchandising machine that still eclipses the entire Disney Princess line all on its own. It's readily apparent its success wasn't a short fad or a brief box office window.
I'm curious to see if Zootopia and Moana will have similar legs.