DreamWorks Animation Death Watch (Nursed Back To Health?)

Anonus · 2014-11-20 05:06:16

aka shit only Anonus and Section and possibly JHM will care about

Let's see:

Rise of the Guardians, Turbo, and Mr. Peabody & Sherman, and Penguins of Madagascar all flopped
Buying spree has resulted in piling on of debt
Acquired Felix the Cat with the intention of making him a fashion brand
DreamPlace is an utterly bizarre idea, in a bad way
DreamWorks Animation and all other major American feature animation studios are being sued for conspiring to keep artists' wages down
The company is working feverishly to revive the DreamWorks Classics characters of Lassie and Richie Rich. Lassie of all characters?
Attempted sales to SoftBank and Hasbro (the latter of which would have renamed itself "DreamWorks-Hasbro" and appointed Jeffrey Katzenberg to the role of chairman) have fallen through
DreamWorks Classics show Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids has been tainted by Bill Cosby's PR nightmare
DreamWorks Studios may or may not change its name, which would end their license payments to DreamWorks Animation for the name and logo
PDI/DreamWorks, which comprises about half of their production operation, will be closed; "PDI" stands for Pacific Data Images, the name under which it was founded in 1980. The studio's closure marks the death of a large part of computer animation's history. DreamWorks Animation is, with this move, now half-dead.
Further death has occurred as they plan to sell their remaining studio off and lease it back.

The company will, no matter what, probably be gone within three years.

lee4hmz · 2014-11-20 05:20:09

I find this subject interesting too, if only because I kind of want to see which sausage factory Classic Media ends up at next...

Anonus · 2014-11-20 05:20:45

I won't lie, if I had the money to buy it the next time it comes up for sale I'd do it.

Anonus · 2014-11-20 05:27:07

Another thing: /co/ has speculated that there's some sort of Disney mole in DWA, speaking of which:

http://pagesix.com/2014/11/19/hollywood-whodunnit-over-leak-that-derailed-dreamworks-hasbro-deal/?_ga=1.130080330.495242321.1400718912

Also you know Katz is fucked when the big newspaper that is kinda-sorta co-owned with the studio distributing his movies (20th Century Fox) is openly mocking and spitting at him.

Aliroz · 2014-11-20 14:51:09

Rise of the Guardians flopped?

But everyone in my area loved that movie.

Like, you know how people complain about how Frozen/avengers/tangled is/was everywhere? We had that with Rise of the Guardians.

Peabody had to compete with the sequel to "300", a Disney movie, a movie from both Universal and Lionsgate, and the residual success of Frozen and also The Lego Movie, and it still won that weekend.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/mr-peabody-sherman-takes-weekend-box-office

Also, why not Lassie? It's a classic and quite beloved, and it has been made into a dang good film not ten years ago in 2005.

Both kung fu pandas were huge successes, as was Monsters vs Aliens.

Heck, the only dreamworks animated picture that didn't make more than it took to produce was Road to El Dorado.

And Kung Fu Panda made more than twice its budget, as did every animated feature after it except Peabody and Sherman.

Anonus · 2014-11-20 14:55:39

Peabody won its second weekend; it took second place the first one.

http://boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=3796&p=.htm

DreamWorks lost a ton of money on Guardians: http://articles.latimes.com/2013/feb/26/entertainment/la-et-ct-dreamworks-animation-writedown-rise-of-the-guardians-20130225

(Also, note that Peabody got moved out of the way of Frozen!)

Anonus · 2014-11-20 14:56:48

As for Lassie: it just seems too dated to really work today without significant changes to it, which might derail what made it appealing at all.

Aliroz · 2014-11-20 15:03:45

How the heck does making more than twice your budget equal losing money?

Aliroz · 2014-11-20 15:04:18

Hey, by that logic: 'Nonus, I'll give you 100 dollars, you'll give me 210, and I'll claim to have lost money.

Aliroz · 2014-11-20 15:04:40

What's different today than 2005? Surely ten years isn't that big a difference.

Anonus · 2014-11-20 15:08:05

Aliroz said:
How the heck does making more than twice your budget equal losing money?

The box office system is kind of opaque, but to the best of everyone's understanding, as a rule, the distributor (in Guardians' case, Paramount) takes half the revenue, while the other half stays with the exhibitors. Paramount (and now 20th Century Fox) agreed to pass 92% of those revenues on to DWA, while retaining 8%.

Aliroz · 2014-11-20 15:15:35

OH, so I give you 100 dollars, you spend it on making a film that gets you 210 dollars, you give me 105 dollars, and in the end your gross earning is 105 dollars.

So, for you to be able to give me back 100 dollars, your 100 dollar film needs to make more than 200 dollars; and it should make, in fact, more than that.

Anonus · 2014-11-20 15:18:33

I guess.

Yarrun XIX · 2014-11-20 23:55:46

Also, mass popular success doesn't necessarily translate into finances.

See Pacific Rim

Anonus · 2014-11-20 23:59:00

I don't know how clear-cut things are there. I do know that Legendary Pictures, who also owns the underlying IP, put up 75% of the budget, and Warner Bros. put up the other 25% and distributed it. It's possible that the movie WAS profitable for Legendary, if not WB.

Imipolex G · 2014-11-21 00:00:16

*shoots DreamWorks Animation*

there. now it's over

Calica · 2014-11-21 00:16:19

Yarrun XIX said:
Also, mass popular success doesn't necessarily translate into finances.

See Pacific Rim

I think Pac Rim's success on tumblr was bigger than its general success but in the end it came close to making back its budget

Anonus · 2014-11-21 01:53:56

also, with regards to the 2006 Lassie movie: I'm pretty sure that thing's only ever been viewed by seven people. It wasn't very widely-released.

Also, DWA aims not to reactivate the character with anything narrative, but to turn her into a merchandising phenomenon. http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/dreamworks-markets-lassie-merchandising-star-159591

Calica · 2014-11-21 02:48:45

what's that, lassie? your popularity fell down a well?

Anonus · 2014-11-21 04:14:36

it's been down a well for a long time

DreamWorks has a real uphill battle ahead of them...you could say that for most of the DreamWorks Classics characters actually

Buying Classic Media (what DreamWorks Classics was called before the sale to DWA) would have made more sense if DWA had wanted to actually use their sizable back catalog, not this "we have to exploit branded characters" shit

Why exploit the characters if you can't prove they're anything more than just images?

Anonus · 2014-11-22 00:54:18

http://www.cartoonbrew.com/cartoon-culture/cake-massacre-penguins-of-madagascar-edition-106067.html

the company's own employees are partaking in the murdalizing

Tre · 2014-11-22 14:45:05

Anonus said:
aka shit only Anonus and Section and possibly JHM will care about

Anonus said:
Turbo

Imipolex G · 2014-11-22 22:04:05

it flopped

Aliroz · 2014-11-23 11:13:48

Anonus said:
also, with regards to the 2006 Lassie movie: I'm pretty sure that thing's only ever been viewed by seven people. It wasn't very widely-released.

Since I have three siblings and two parents, it is imperative that I must find this mysterious seventh person.

DANG IT 'NONUS, WHO WAS NUMBER SEVEN!

Anonus · 2014-11-25 00:33:04

Barack Obama.

There isn't anywhere else really to put this, but my fantasy scenario is that DWA goes bust, somebody competent buys the company's assets, and Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois strike out on their own and set up their own studio.

Anonus · 2014-12-02 10:03:15

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/dreamworks-animation-book-penguins-loss-752875

Anonus · 2014-12-03 02:52:07

I find this subject interesting too, if only because I kind of want to see which sausage factory Classic Media ends up at next...

To be honest? I think I know who's gonna end up buying it...

lee4hmz · 2014-12-03 04:50:24

lol dhx

Anonus · 2014-12-03 04:56:06

I wonder what's gonna happen to them too. They just bought another thing and this buying spree seems unsustainable to me.

Anonus · 2014-12-04 08:07:27

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=daily&id=penguinsofmadagascar.htm

i know it's the school year still but oh my god this movie's daily grosses have already dipped into the six-digits

Imipolex G · 2014-12-04 08:13:59

and yet it has a total of $37 million.

That's more money than you or I will ever see

Anonus · 2014-12-04 08:15:04

still might not turn a profit at theatrical though

thing is that if DWA were part of some huge media conglomerate they wouldn't have to worry about deriving profits from box office revenues, they'd have cable TV networks and other profit centers to prop them up

Anonus · 2014-12-12 23:09:35

http://www.cartoonbrew.com/feature-film/kung-fu-panda-3-pushed-back-to-avoid-star-wars-106880.html

KFP 3 has been pushed to 2016, on the heels of the nearly-done B.O.O. being delayed indefinitely

Bee · 2014-12-12 23:16:37

Aliroz said:
Heck, the only dreamworks animated picture that didn't make more than it took to produce was Road to El Dorado.

Which really sucks, because it was probably the best thing they've ever done.

Yarrun XIX · 2014-12-12 23:25:30

You mean tied with Prince of Egypt, right?

I think that's what you meant.

Bee · 2014-12-13 19:02:22

It's a very close #2 that I would not begrudge anyone for putting first.

PatchAwful · 2014-12-14 23:04:10

I fall for those fake hashtag links everytime...

Tachyon · 2014-12-14 23:05:49

They're not fake anymore!

Calica · 2014-12-14 23:12:37

#tag

Tachyon · 2014-12-14 23:16:53

They are however extremely buggy. They only become a link in the first paragraph of a post, or in a bulleted list, and they don't link if they're the last word of a paragraph unless there's some form of punctuation afterwards.

However, a #tag that doesn't link will still show up in the search feature i believe - so if this works as i think it does, clicking Calica's tag there should bring up a list of results which includes this post.

PatchAwful · 2014-12-14 23:17:05

Tachyon said:
They're not fake anymore!

They're very real, and link to very irrelevant pages!

(at least #2 does)

Tachyon · 2014-12-14 23:17:33

Well, that's embarrassing.

Clearly i didn't #test enough.

Tachyon · 2014-12-14 23:18:13

But for example, this post will show up in the results if you click Calica's link. #tag

PatchAwful · 2014-12-14 23:20:43

That didn't link, but the post still shows up in Calica's link

I think I just don't understand hashtags

Anonus · 2014-12-15 02:03:05

guys what about the #DreamWorksAnimationDeathWatch though

Imipolex G · 2014-12-15 03:50:22

it's dead already

Tre · 2014-12-15 04:05:11

like, #THQ dead, or just kinda-sorta-not quite dead dead?

Imipolex G · 2014-12-15 04:06:33

only mostly dead

Anonus · 2014-12-15 04:17:13

I keep thinking that DWA might end up #THQ dead

There is no bailout coming as long as Katzenberg insists on remaining in charge, I think...

Anonus · 2014-12-16 23:13:31

Updated the OP again

lee4hmz · 2014-12-17 01:54:43

They actually tried to make a new Lassie series in the late 1980s...I think it lasted one or two seasons.

DreamWorks Animation Death Watch (Nursed Back To Health?)

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