Dreamworks Animation: What Went Wrong?

[pepsa]

Disney is just unstopable, they got marvel, they got starwars, POTC, they got WDAS, and pixar and their life action movies of their classics. I mean even if one does bad all the others will make it good. 

 

As for oversaturation, I think the problem is that older people don't realy go to animation movies unless it's with their kids. While I enjoy most of the animation movies. We got more than 50 action movies a year. I could handle 15 animation movies

[Sir Tiki]

Looks like Mumbai Musical, Madagascar 4 and Puss in Boots have been canned for now. Captain Underpants sounds like it'll be outsourced to one of their studios in China or India to save money, I would not be surprised if it ends up replacing Boss Baby which I'm surprised is still going ahead. 

 

Tough times for Katzenberg and DWA, I do think it's time he stepped down and got someone in who can turn the company around. 

 

It wouldn't surprise me if they're maybe reconsidering Madagascar 4, due to Penguins' low gross. The return of Boss Baby does surprise me, but perhaps they've gotten over whatever story problems they were having with it. That or like you say it's filler until they officially replace it with something else.

 

And I see Dragon 3 has been bumped to 2018.

[Jonwo]

It wouldn't surprise me if they're maybe reconsidering Madagascar 4, due to Penguins' low gross. The return of Boss Baby does surprise me, but perhaps they've gotten over whatever story problems they were having with it. That or like you say it's filler until they officially replace it with something else.

 

And I see Dragon 3 has been bumped to 2018.

 

Madagascar 3 ended the series perfectly so I'm okay with Mad 4 not going ahead. 

 

PDI being shut down does not surprise me, I think out of the two studios DWA has, it was the more likely to go which is a shame because it produced Shrek and Madagascar, both helped DWA to be successful. 

[BadAtGender]

A four year cycle for Dragon 3 is a bit surprising, but overall this looks like a much stronger release schedule. It balances out the originals with the sequels.

 

I'm sad Mumbai Musical was dropped, but it's not especially surprising.

[Jonwo]

A four year cycle for Dragon 3 is a bit surprising, but overall this looks like a much stronger release schedule. It balances out the originals with the sequels.

 

I'm sad Mumbai Musical was dropped, but it's not especially surprising.

 

I'm guessing Mumbai along with Puss 2 and Mad 4 were PDI projects since none of them are on the schedule. 

 

Katzenberg also mentioned he would more hands on with each film. Sounds like a bad idea rather than a good idea to me,

Edited January 22, 2015 by Jonwo

[TServo2049]

Stephen Schwartz and A.R. Rahman wrote a bunch of songs for the Mumbai musical - I guess all that work will go to waste?

I do wonder if B.O.O. will ever see the light of day. How many films, animated or otherwise, have been canned in mid-production and never finished/released?

Sad to have to wait still another year for HTTYD3, but at least it's still happening.

Edited January 22, 2015 by TServo2049

[Sir Tiki]

As part of its restructuring announced today, DreamWorks Animation will be shutting down PDI/DreamWorks, its computer animation production company in Redwood City, CA. Half of PDI’s 450 workers will lose their jobs; the others will be offered positions at the DWA campus in Glendale.

 

http://deadline.com/2015/01/pdidreamworks-closing-dreamworks-animation-layoffs-1201356039/

 

So 225 PDI employees, and then another 275 non-PDI employees losing their jobs. And that's just assuming that the remaining 225 PDI employees would be willing to make the five hour move down to Glendale.

Edited February 2, 2015 by Sir Tiki

[FrozenUnicorn]

Stephen Schwartz and A.R. Rahman wrote a bunch of songs for the Mumbai musical - I guess all that work will go to waste?

I do wonder if B.O.O. will ever see the light of day. How many films, animated or otherwise, have been canned in mid-production and never finished/released?

Sad to have to wait still another year for HTTYD3, but at least it's still happening.

Shame about B.O.O, that and Me And My Shadow seemed like interesting films I'd like to see.

As for your question about films, allow TV Tropes to enlighten you about Development Hell:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DevelopmentHell

[TServo2049]

I know about Development Hell, I've read Tales from Development Hell too. I meant films getting canned DURING production. (Just remembered it happened to Me and My Shadow also, right? That was IN production when it was shelved, right?)

[FrozenUnicorn]

I know about Development Hell, I've read Tales from Development Hell too. I meant films getting canned DURING production. (Just remembered it happened to Me and My Shadow also, right? That was IN production when it was shelved, right?)

I think films like that still are said to be in "Development Hell", at least as TV Tropes defines it—their one-sentence summary is, "Where unreleased, pending works go to die." There seem to be a few examples on that page of films that were in production only to be shelved, and Me and My Shadow is also mentioned.

Edited January 23, 2015 by FrozenUnicorn

[Jonwo]

DWA are reducing their budgets from $120m a film with the exception of Captain Underpants but while that is lower than WDAS/Pixar, it's still higher than WB/Sony/Illumination etc 

 

Katzenberg is delusional if he thinks Boss Baby can perform as well as American Sniper, I notice he failed to mention The Lego Movie which did a fantastic opening in February last year, surely that would be a better comparison than AS

[MovieMan89]

It's not like Dreamworks ever really had the kind of creative power Pixar and Disney had. They've always put out mostly ordinary films with the occasional breakout hit even before they started ramping up their production slate (and arguably they were even worse since they haven't put out anything as bad as Shark Tale recently). In this more crowded market where CGI is no longer a novelty but an expectation, their MO is catching up to them and will spell their doom regardless of how many films they put out if they don't completely revamp their production model.

I don't believe that DWA's films wouldn't be of higher quality if they were only doing one film a year. Yeah Shark Tale sucked anyways, but that's just one movie. And it was still successful. Because the new DWA movie back then had brand name power and a audience awaiting it. Now when they put out 2-3 movies a year all the time, no one cares about the "new" DWA movie because they've run their brand name into the ground. It's overkill, even if all the movies were great. And most of them are at least good in all honesty. The quality isn't even their main problem. It's the oversaturation. And all the other studios will eventually fall victim to that too if they adopt this release strategy.

[Jonwo]

I don't believe that DWA's films wouldn't be of higher quality if they were only doing one film a year. Yeah Shark Tale sucked anyways, but that's just one movie. And it was still successful. Because the new DWA movie back then had brand name power and a audience awaiting it. Now when they put out 2-3 movies a year all the time, no one cares about the "new" DWA movie because they've run their brand name into the ground. It's overkill, even if all the movies were great. And most of them are at least good in all honesty. The quality isn't even their main problem. It's the oversaturation. And all the other studios will eventually fall victim to that too if they adopt this release strategy.

 

The other studios like Illumination, Warner Animation, WDAS, Pixar etc are somewhat protected in that they are part of a bigger corporation whereas DWA is independent and needs every film to be a hit or the stock takes a tumble. 

[filmlover]

Youch! Hopefully the voice recording sessions for B.O.O. will leak someday, at least.

[The Futurist]

One year from now we ll be discussing, Pixar, What went wrong ?

[kkccoo]

One year from now we ll be discussing, Pixar, What went wrong ?

I guess after a few years, Pixar will face same fate as PDI. Disney only need one animation studio

Edited January 23, 2015 by kkccoo

[lilmac]

WDAS a decade ago did start doing 2 films a year in 1999/2000 with Dinosaur and The Emperor's New Groove in the same year and Lilo and Stitch and Treasure Planet in 2002 and that wasn't including films from their DTV studio like The Tigger Movie. I think releasing 2-3 films a year has meant audiences have tired of the DWA brand as they've not hit it out of the park, when it was only them, Pixar and to an extent Blue Sky, they could get away with mediocre but with so many studios competing in an over saturated market, they've frankly not stepped up their game and they are paying the price.

 

Which is why Pixar should always keep the number of its film limited per year, lest it over-saturate the market (no matter how good the films are).

[AniNate]

I don't believe that DWA's films wouldn't be of higher quality if they were only doing one film a year. Yeah Shark Tale sucked anyways, but that's just one movie. And it was still successful. Because the new DWA movie back then had brand name power and a audience awaiting it. Now when they put out 2-3 movies a year all the time, no one cares about the "new" DWA movie because they've run their brand name into the ground. It's overkill, even if all the movies were great. And most of them are at least good in all honesty. The quality isn't even their main problem. It's the oversaturation. And all the other studios will eventually fall victim to that too if they adopt this release strategy.

 

"At least good" is not enough in this market for animated movies. In the cases where the studio did strike a chord with audiences, they reaped considerable benefits (ie Madagascar, Croods, HTTYD). I don't buy that they wouldn't have done much better if they had made three "great" films a year rather than three "good" ones. A lot of animated films come out every year that are not by Dreamworks, and with very rare exception they're typically the only entertainment suitable for kids that doesn't make parents want to shoot themselves. If Dreamworks made something like The Lego Movie or Frozen with more regularity, they'd still have that brand name power.

[BK007]

Cannot believe they decided to can BOO after all this time. 

 

Surely the film was almost done considering the delay was less than 12 months before its release date.

 

I think this is the latest canning we've known of? I mean, Bolt, Tangled, Brave etc. were all delayed and released. 

 

newt was cancelled 2 years before release or something and we never really knew if they had any development really going on for Shadow, Mumbai Musical and etc.

 

Does it really save them money? Surely it would still make like $80m and maybe $200m worldwide. Isn't that better than scrapping $150m? I don't know. 

[BK007]

Also glad that the three sequels they decided to go ahead with were Panda, Croods and Dragon. Those are the only ones I was interested in watching. Also the animation for those movies, IMO were much better than those in Madagascar and Shrek. I'm glad that they are closing down PDI if they had to choose one, because that kind of blocky character animation present in Madagascar movies and the ugly ones in Puss in Boots were the ones I least liked. I'm sure Rise of the Guardians came out from there too? But I really liked that movie and the designs I thought were really ugly actually fit very well with the kind of film they made. 

 

I'm excited for the Australian outback musical and couldn't care less about Trolls or that Boss Baby. The director is from the Madagascar trilogy and Megamind which are all not great films. So that should have been fucked off the schedule.