When people talk about the successful Marvel animated theatrical releases, everyone praises Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and its sequel, and for good reason. These are not only great movies, but they are revolutionary in terms of animation from a technical aspect. The first movie won the Best Animated Feature award at the Oscars, and while the second movie, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, didn’t win that, it made more money at the box office and was equally beloved by critics and audiences. However, it wasn’t the first Marvel animated feature that saw success.
Videos by ComicBook.com
On November 7, 2014, four years before Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Disney released Big Hero 6. This movie also won the Best Animated Feature award at the Oscars, and it is equally beloved by fans and critics. However, no one talks about Big Hero 6 in the same way that they do the Spider-Verse movies.
Big Hero 6 Is a Highly Underrated Forgotten Marvel Movie
Image Courtesy of Disney
Big Hero 6 was a Marvel Comics property that was released as an animated movie in 2014 without playing into its connection to the comics at all. While it is based on a preexisting Marvel Comics title, the movie was marketed simply as a Disney animated film. That is a big reason it is often forgotten about when discussing Marvel releases. However, the movie deserves as much credit and praise as either of the Spider-Verse movies, and it proved that Marvel properties could succeed as big-screen award-winning animated releases.
The movie is based on the Big Hero 6 characters that debuted in 1998, created by Steven T. Seagle and Duncan Rouleau, although the miniseries they debuted in had the creative team of Scott Lobdell and Gus Vasquez. They also crossed over with Alpha Flight that same year and then again in 2004. With all that said, the movie had little to do with the story from the comics, and it became almost unrecognizable compared with the books. Instead, this is an alternate-world movie that has now broken completely away from Marvel.
Big Hero 6 focuses on a young boy named Hiro Hamada, a brilliant robotics prodigy who is drifting through life until his brother dies. He then comes around and realizes that he has a life ahead of him that involves science and camaraderie. He works with his brother’s friends, all scientific geniuses, and together they become a superhero team using their scientific knowledge and inventions. The world is brilliantly realized, taking place in a city called San Fransokyo, an amalgam of San Francisco and Tokyo, and between that and the fan-favorite Baymax healthcare robot, the film became a massive critical and commercial success.
Big Hero 6 Matches Up Well With Into the Spider-Verse
Image Courtesy of Disney
Critics loved Big Hero 6, awarding it a 90% Rotten Tomatoes score, while the audience score is even higher at 91%. It was also an award-winning success story, winning the Best Animated Feature award at the Oscars, an Annie Award, and five awards at the Visual Effects Society Awards in 2015. It was also a box office success, making $672 million on a $165 million budget. That was a bigger box office total than Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. The movie is bigger than most people might remember.
It also spawned an animated TV series on Disney XD called Big Hero 6: The Series, which takes place after the events of the film. It ran for three seasons. There was another animated series that arrived in 2022 on Disney+ called Baymax!, which was a series of shorts where Baymax helped people in need before needing to be saved himself. It was proof that the movie was big enough to carry on after its release. There was also supposed to be a sequel, but it has still never seen the light of day.
In an interesting turn of events, even though Disney owns Marvel and released Big Hero 6, Marvel Comics didn’t bring the characters back, and they have pretty much broken away from Marvel. In fact, a Japanese manga adaptation of Big Hero 6 began serialization in 2014, and when the movie came out, it was IDW Publishing that adapted the Disney property into a comic book. Despite the Oscar win and high critical praise, Big Hero 6 has almost no connection to Marvel Comics, which might be a big reason that the movie remains underrated and few people talk about it on the level of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
What are your thoughts about Big Hero 6? Let us know in the comments how you think Big Hero 6 stands up against the Spider-Verse movies.
5 Perfect Marvel Zombies Stories For the Announced Disney+ Specials (& 1 Would Destroy the Biggest MCU Villain)
More Movies
Bill Skarsgard is ready to be a part of the James Bond franchise, and is ready to be its ultimate bad guy.
Movies
5 hours ago
IT Star Bill Skarsgard is Tired of Playing Villains But Would Make An Exception for One Franchise
Movies
5 hours ago
Tim Burton’s Batman Ended Early Thanks to a McDonald’s Happy Meal Controversy
<img src="https://comicbook.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2026/09/resident-evil-movie-2026-release-bryan.png?w=300" alt="2026’s History-Making Video Game Hit Is Now Dominating Streaming – but Its Fandom Still Won’t Admit It’s Amazing”>Courtesy of Sony Pictures.
Movies
6 hours ago
2026’s History-Making Video Game Hit Is Now Dominating Streaming – but Its Fandom Still Won’t Admit It’s Amazing
Movies
7 hours ago
Exquisite Corpses, Image Comics’ Hit Horror Series, Confirmed as New Blumhouse Movie
Movies
9 hours ago
New Disney Live-Action Movie Will Give a Greek Villain The Cruella Treatment
Movies
10 hours ago
It’s Been 13 Years Since Vin Diesel Revived a Sci-Fi Cult Favorite and He Did It By Ignoring Its Most Divisive Sequel
![Godzilla Minus Zero Star Breaks Down Her Character’s Big Change for Sequel [EXCLUSIVE]](https://comicbook.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2026/11/Godzilla-Minus-Zero-Noriko-Minami-Hamabe-Exclusive.jpg?w=300)
