Owners of NBC Buy Dreamworks Animation for $3.55 billion

[D'Snowth]

And this is one of the reasons why you don't sell out. Even Walt Disney himself said that: never sell out.

 

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

ARGH, so many sequels, so many unnecessary. I really hope those rumors about 'Sequel Fatigue' are true so we can finally stop getting all these pointless sequels for every single movie. Shrek is dead, he's been dead for several years. He's outdated and his story has been wrapped up. Why oh why can't we just have something original (yeah yeah, I know, money and all that, blah blah blah) ??! I'm so tired of all these reboots,sequels and revivals.
I was so sure we were done with Shrek. This is even worse that Pixar making a fourth Toy Story movie. What's the point of wrapping up a good story if your just going to stretch it out more and more and more.

 

[mr3urious]

So much for my hopes that NBCU will be hands-off with DW's business.

 

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

I really hope NBC doesn't turn DWA into some stale Illumination copy.

 

[Drtooth]

So much for my hopes that NBCU will be hands-off with DW's business.

I hope that's basically the only influence on the company they have. I really don't like the idea of another Shrek. The third movie pretty much showed they had at least one movie too many. Among it's major problems, they tried to shove in too many concepts. Like how all Princes come from High School, and the Princess resistance army, and it being about villains wanting their happy ending and Shrek being a father and having to be a king, and the totally unfunny bit that dragged on way too long about Puss and Donkey in each other's bodies. And above all, it had the one thing I hate to see in a sequel, a warmed over revenge plot by the previous movie's villain. Yeah, the third movie made a mint, but got bad enough reaction that they slammed shut on future movies after the fourth, closing movie, and the spinoff.

Still, wanting to save an animation company that's been having a lot of trouble with the film that put them on the map is at least understandable. With the exception of Home, every film they've made that isn't a sequel (and I've said this for a while) is just audience alienating. Turbo had perhaps the stupidest premise of a kid's film I've ever heard of, even though in the end it was fun, but mostly due to the voice cast and animation outweighing the script. I have to admit, I have zero excitement for Trolls, other than the huge sigh of relief that Tim Hill isn't going to make a hybrid film which would inevitably be a worse ripoff of the first Smurfs movie. If that's the case, I can totally see Universal wanting something familiar, even though the second Croods film hasn't been heard about since it was first announced.

On that note, prior to the buy out, the heads of Dreamworks were threatening to make another Madagascar and Kung Fu Panda (turning it into a long term series the likes of Shrek was supposed to be). Both films closed things out even better than Shrek 4 did. The Zoo animals finally realizing they didn't need to go back home to be happy (I'm sure everyone who cared to see that saw it already) and Po:

Spoiler

Becoming the ultimate Kung Fu master, closing out his story arc

Not that I wouldn't want to see a King Julien spinoff movie, though the Netflix series takes care of that much better than a film ever would. And I don't know if KFP would have much of a viable spinoff. Maybe something about Shifu? Like a prequel about him?

So to be quite fair, while I would rather they didn't make Shrek 5 and beyond like they threatened to do back in 2007, I can see why that would be preferred to hit or miss sounding original films. Then again, more Shrek doesn't necessarily mean "more movies."

 

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

*sigh, I really hope we start seeing the good side of this deal soon...

http://www.cartoonbrew.com/business...00-dreamworks-animation-employees-143103.html

 

[mr3urious]

*sigh, I really hope we start seeing the good side of this deal soon...

http://www.cartoonbrew.com/business...00-dreamworks-animation-employees-143103.html

Seems to be mainly in the corporate and management positions. Don't know if that's a good thing or not.

 

[MuppetSpot]

I just wondering if Universal just wanted some more characters for their amusement parks.