Owners of NBC Buy Dreamworks Animation for $3.55 billion

[mr3urious]

They had some sort of silent partnership with Universal back in the late 90's when they were first a thing. Their Toonsylvania VHS had a lot of Universal previews on it, and I'm sure their at the time films did to on home video.

And the only Dreamworks TV series to air on NBC was the largely forgettable Father of the Pride, which was an adult sitcom about the lives of Las Vegas show animals, starring a John Goodman-voiced white lion and his family. It only lasted 13 episodes, with one unaired in the U.S. and another never finished, mostly due to the enormous budget and deadlines DW was faced with.

 

[D'Snowth]

Dreamworks was never its own company.

Are you sure about that? Because I have a couple of their pre-SHREK movies, such as MOUSEHUNT (one of their live action movies), and ANTZ, and I see no indication that they were ever in partnership or association with any other company. Heck, Spielberg was one of the founders of DW, along with Katzenberg, and that other guy (hence the SKG at the bottom of their name).

 

[Drtooth]

And the only Dreamworks TV series to air on NBC was the largely forgettable Father of the Pride, which was an adult sitcom about the lives of Las Vegas show animals, starring a John Goodman-voiced white lion and his family. It only lasted 13 episodes, with one unaired in the U.S. and another never finished, mostly due to the enormous budget and deadlines DW was faced with.

Animated sitcoms were always a pretty big risk, few of which paid off. Especially if you weren't on Fox. Everyone wanted that sweet, sweet Simpsons (or Family Guy as the case may be) money, but those sorts of shows never fit on the network. That said, it was the only adult cartoon Dreamworks produced, and NBC wasn't in the market for kid's cartoons back then. Viacom's Nickelodeon deal was the only thing with a remote stability. Remote as in there are still episodes of Penguins of Madagascar that didn't air yet a good 5 years after the show ended I might add. Monsters VS Aliens may not have ended on a satisfying note, but at least they showed all the episodes.

Are you sure about that? Because I have a couple of their pre-SHREK movies, such as MOUSEHUNT (one of their live action movies), and ANTZ, and I see no indication that they were ever in partnership or association with any other company. Heck, Spielberg was one of the founders of DW, along with Katzenberg, and that other guy (hence the SKG at the bottom of their name).

As per my understanding. If anything there was a silent partnership for distribution when some of their movies came out. I swear they had a deal with Paramount at some point as far as distribution.

 

[D'Snowth]

I'm not sure about that either - maybe it was a silent partnership, because many of their movies mention being distributed by themselves.

 

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

Well, that's a biggie. Do they merge them with Illumination? I have no idea what the point of this was.

Maybe, it'll be kind of like how Disney has their main animation studio, which they control as bit more, but also owns Pixar which has more creative freedom away from Disney Animation.

 

[Drtooth]

Maybe, it'll be kind of like how Disney has their main animation studio, which they control as bit more, but also owns Pixar which has more creative freedom away from Disney Animation.

While Pixar has creative control over their and Disney's original animated output, Pixar and Disney Animation movies are considered different entities. Anything otherwise would be like saying the live action Jungle Book remake is a Marvel film considering Marvel published a Jungle Book comic back in the day and the director of Iron Man was behind it. As in, we'd never get a crossover between the Zootopia characters and Toy Story, though we see Zootopia reference Frozen and Pixar's past and present characters being hidden in any given film. Sort of like how they oddly obstructed any reference to Big Hero 6 being a Marvel movie, despite Stan Lee's cameo and...oh yeah... BH6 being a Marvel comic.

I do not see Universal consolidating both animation studios and having Despicable Me 4 (as a third one is almost ready) produced by their Dreamworks division. I see some level of vertical product integration maybe happening in DW's films, just a strong boarder between them and Illumitoon. I just hope that all the deals Dreamworks made prior don't wind up abruptly ending. I'm very happy with their Netflix cartoon line up and very excited for Voltron and Trollhunters. I'd hate to see those kinds of projects dry up under Universal.

 

[KremlingWhatnot]

I just hope that all the deals Dreamworks made prior don't wind up abruptly ending. I'm very happy with their Netflix cartoon line up and very excited for Voltron and Trollhunters. I'd hate to see those kinds of projects dry up under Universal.

And judging by the fact that Universal is owned by Comcast, I don't see that going so well likely, unfortunely. I mean this is the one of the worst cable companies were talking about, I don't see them pulling a U-Verse and everything's fine handy dandy. again, unfortunely.

 

[Muppet Master]

Wow that was quick, it was just 3 years ago that FOX bought them, and before Paramount distributed their films. Dreamworks has really been in a creative and financial rut since 2012 post Madagascar 3, which was a huge success and was the highest grossing of the franchise. Turbo, Rise of the Guardians, Penguins of Madagsacar, and Peabody were are box office bombs, and it was very surprising to see a Madagascar spinoff flop. How To Train Your Dragon 2 underperformed by a lot, the execs had great hopes that the film would be a bigger financial success than the first one, but ended up falling way short. The Croods and Home were only modest success and Kung Fu Panda 3 did okay, but no that good. So ya, I hope this move puts life back into this great studio, and it sucks how financially inept they have been recently.

 

[Drtooth]

Fox was more of a distribution partnership than a full fledged buyout. They didn't really own their movies (as per my understanding) unlike when Disney and Pixar were first together. And we all know what would have happened there had Disney not bought them up. Circle freakin' Seven.

I'd love to put the blame on Fox and say something about sabotaging Dreamworks' films so their Blue Sky films (which they do own) can do better, but that's all horsebunk. AS I've said in the past, Guardians (based on a book series no one read), Turbo, and Peabody and Sherman (based on a cartoon that the fans wouldn't want to see a movie of and the kids don't care about, yet did better than most of these kinds of films) were very much audience alienating premises. Penguins of Madagascar should have been a hit, but was released Thanksgiving Weekend which is the only time a film will make its money because it goes straight into holiday shopping season from there. However, all those films made back around twice their budget overseas. Turbo was especially popular in certain Asian and South American countries. Peabody and Sherman not so much, as that's really an American cartoon. Did well in South America where they actually know the characters. Even then, George of the Jungle made eh money, enough that they made a DTV sequel that amazingly didn't suck and kept meta enough to still be funny through all its cheapness. The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle was a notorious bomb, as was the low budget but barely made a couple million Dudley Do-Right. And Boris and Natasha wasn't even released to theaters. And frankly, out of all the Jay Ward movies, it sucked the most. It was downright terrible and wasn't even a good knockoff of Naked Gun. Seriously. Peabody and Sherman was the Avatar of the Jay Ward movies.

The Penguins movie flopped due to timing and the fact that Dreamworks knew that Home would have perished in that slot. They swapped out the movies, POM became their sacrificial lamb to go to Home's domestic success (supposedly it did meh overseas, just like Monsters Vs Aliens which is why we got a short lived cartoon instead of a sequel). Had things been different and BH6 got released Thanksgiving, Home would have got the prime pre-Thanksgiving slot that most movies thrive off of. Look at how well Puss in Boots did as it was released the last week of October. POM would've probably done better in Summer, but I think March would have done it good.

 

[Drtooth]

While this really shouldn't surprise anyone, of course this is what happens...

Universal wants more Shrek movies.

Now, I like Shrek. I like the Puss in Boots spinoff movie and TV show. But the thing about Shrek is that he's very much a product of the early 00's when we needed that sort of sarcastic smartanus, sticking it to the popular kids type humor. Not saying why, but it should be painfully obvious. A decade and a half later, that's a film filled with dead horse tropes that most movies completely avoid, even Dreamworks itself. And what made Shrek good only worked for two movies, the third one became tedious, and the fourth one closed things off well enough that we don't need another Shrek film.

Now, I'm going to make the obvious comparison. Ice freaking Age 5. Now, I have to admit, I did like the trailer to this next one, but I refuse to go and see it. The fourth one I tried avoiding I saw because of Maggie Simpson and the pirates. Other than Sid's grandmother, there's little else in the film to talk positively about. The Scrat stuff got old (though I like how it closed out the movie, it should have been the end), and the dead cliches of lame tweencoms filled out the B story. The film series is only continuing because of money, and frankly I want to like Blue Sky studio. They did a great job with Peanuts, but that's because they just animated it and didn't write it. Rio is overrated (though admittedly visually stunning), and even fans of the first one hate the second. Blue Sky lives for sequels. Ice Age especially.

Shrek is a pleasant memory as far as Dreamworks is concerned (minus Puss in Boot's show), and they've been doing far better movies ever since with stronger franchise with better scripts (for the most part). Sure, I see Shrek still an essential part of DW merchandising, but it shares with Madagascar, HTTYD, and KFP among others. And I see more of the three latter as of late. While it's no secret, DW is making some...strange choices with movies and could very well go for something less of a financial risk and that very well might be a Shrek film. Then again, KFP2 and HHTYD2 did only modestly due to being released against the only comedy sequels people paid to see in theaters, and bad timing killed POM, even after the box office bonanza that Madagascar 3 left.