Dreamworks Animation: What Went Wrong?

[Vanilla]

Paramount and Fox

[Rudolf]

DreamWorks would have been Hasbro's nightmare. When news of the Hasbro purchase of DreamWorks got out, Disney made it known to Hasbro that they disapproved of the idea. Hasbro ended takeover talks with DWA after that. 1/3 of Hasbro's gross comes from selling Disney related toys. Hasbro couldn't afford to lose Disney as a toy licensor. Losing Disney to Mattel would be a bigger loss for Hasbro than buying DWA would be a gain.

yes Disney killed that very swiftly

buying a toymaker would make sense for any studio, so they could market their own content for kids

Disney could also sell Star Wars comics through Marvel

imagine all those Princess Leia dolls for older boys

[zackzack]

Audience fatigue, too much kid-friendly titles, too much sarcastic mean-spirited joke, people needs to nourish the soul sometimes

[zackzack]

Plus, nothing is as good as Frozen....

[Neo]

Merged both threads.

[CaptainJackSparrow]

Captain Underpants would have been big like 10 years ago, the series sold over 70 million copies!

[TServo2049]

I understand why Katzenberg would be interested in the property, it's subversive and full of potty humor.

But agreed with Captain Jack, it should have come out in the 00s. DreamWorks didn't even acquire the rights until 2011.

Edited December 1, 2014 by TServo2049

[Melvin Frohike]

DreamWorks would have been Hasbro's nightmare.

I was just going to say. Disney, after all, has all of the leverage in their partnership (just ask Mattel).

 

When news of the Hasbro purchase of DreamWorks got out, Disney made it known to Hasbro that they disapproved of the idea. Hasbro ended takeover talks with DWA after that. 1/3 of Hasbro's gross comes from selling Disney related toys. Hasbro couldn't afford to lose Disney as a toy licensor. Losing Disney to Mattel would be a bigger loss for Hasbro than buying DWA would be a gain.

There was this and the fact that Hasbro's stock price went into a free fall when word of this potential deal was leaked.

Edited December 2, 2014 by Melvin Frohike

[Walt Disney]

I've mentioned this before but the best studios to buy DWA would be Paramount or Warner Bros, both have outlets that could use DWA IP and films and the latter has a strong animation history with Looney Tunes, Hanna Barbera and Tom and Jerry

 

Warner Bros. really can't buy DWA. When there were those rumors about Fox possibly buying Time Warner, I did some Time Warner research. Time Warner is still massively in debt over the AOL merger. I didn't realize how bad it truly was, but that merger really hurt Time Warner and they are still in the red from it. Despite the studio making money, the company is still in the red. Therefore, I don't think Time Warner will be in the position to buy any company any time soon.

[DAJK]

I haven't read through all 37 of the pages, so maybe this has been covered already, but maybe Dreamwokrs' films like Turbo, Peabody etc just aren't easily marketable as say something like Frozen or Big Hero 6 or Despicable Me...

[Ethan Hunt]

I for one found Turbo's marketing to be pretty incredible, I'm not quire sure why not didn't connect with people ( obviously the film wasn't as good as the marketing suggested, but the fact that it didn't open at least as high as The Croods confuses me)

[MovieMan89]

WDA could be what went wrong, and the same goes for Pixar to an extent. If we look at history, Pixar came into prominence the same year Pocahontas saw the Disney renaissance start its downtrend. DWA came into prominence with Shrek, 2 years after the renaissance was officially considered dead. Before Pixar/DWA they had always more or less been the kings of the animated feature industry, whether they were very successful or not. Every other animated movie not from Disney had to fight hard to even get their movies released. Now that WDA seem to have re-claimed their throne for the first time since all these CG studios came into prominence, a similar thing could be happening. Other studios will have to fight a lot harder to compete with the returning "king" of the genre, even the likes of a once juggernaut like Pixar. DWA movies that look unappealing to start with like Turbo or Home, are especially going to get crushed. They can't just throw out anything and expect the brand name to carry it anymore. Disney has the brand name draw power back in their monopolization.

Edited December 1, 2014 by MovieMan89

[FrozenUnicorn]

I for one found Turbo's marketing to be pretty incredible, I'm not quire sure why not didn't connect with people ( obviously the film wasn't as good as the marketing suggested, but the fact that it didn't open at least as high as The Croods confuses me)

I can describe why in one sentence: It basically seemed like Cars with snails.

[Ethan Hunt]

I can describe why in one sentence: It basically seemed like Cars with snails.

So? It looked like a really good film, with strong characters and a good sense of humor.

[DAJK]

I also think that DWA films (the majority, so lets exclude HTTYD, KFP, RotG) always end up being "okay" or "good" but not "great". And maybe that's how families see it, so they won't make it a theatre experience on seeing something that is just "ok".

[Ethan Hunt]

I also think that DWA films (the majority, so lets exclude HTTYD, KFP, RotG) always end up being "okay" or "good" but not "great". And maybe that's how families see it, so they won't make it a theatre experience on seeing something that is just "ok".

As of recently, Yes. ( of course Puss in Boots is damn great as well as far as their films since 2010)

[MovieMan89]

I also think that DWA films (the majority, so lets exclude HTTYD, KFP, RotG) always end up being "okay" or "good" but not "great". And maybe that's how families see it, so they won't make it a theatre experience on seeing something that is just "ok".

They're so hit and miss in quality it is hard to believe they carried so much brand name power for so long in some ways. I mean really we have Shrek 1/2, KFP1, and HTTYD 1/2 that are considered "great" by many who saw them. Otherwise, none of their others have that reputation among the majority consensus.

[Ethan Hunt]

They're so hit and miss in quality it is hard to believe they carried so much brand name power for so long in some ways. I mean really we have Shrek 1/2, KFP1, and HTTYD 1/2 that are considered "great" by many who saw them. Otherwise, none of their others have that reputation among the majority consensus.

Last time I checked both Kung Fu Panda films bare considered great.

[phantom]

For me, none of the movies of DWA I considered as an event (though HTTYD and Megamind proved otherwise later on). All of the movies of DWA except for Shrek 3, I watched them on the internet. After Shrek 3, I vowed never to watch Shrek in big screen (that's a waste of money).

 

Dreamworks seemed like they don't have brand loyalty from fans because how can they get one if their movies are hit-and-miss.

[Melvin Frohike]

Plus, nothing is as good as Frozen....

Heh, probably nobody around here loves Frozen more than I do, but you're just asking for trouble with that.

That said, I do wonder if this movie casts a cold shadow over the entire family entertainment market because it still occupies so much of the attention of many children and the pocketbooks of their parents.

 

I for one found Turbo's marketing to be pretty incredible, I'm not quire sure why not didn't connect with people ( obviously the film wasn't as good as the marketing suggested, but the fact that it didn't open at least as high as The Croods confuses me)

I don't know, maybe the basic concept is too extreme or obvious in a way that reminds people of animated B-movies. That's the sense I got, anyway, and I wouldn't be surprised if that's how many other people felt, too (subconsciously if nothing else). Everything's been done before and is a trope, but some tropes are considered overly cliched or discredited, and some may have negative associations. I mean, a snail in a race against extremely fast cars? It just seems too contrived and predictable from the outset, and like something a small, crappy studio would make instead of being the major animated feature from a major studio that it is (plus it doesn't really look that impressive visually, which doesn't help).