The animation company that was orginally a subsidiary of
DreamWorks, created by Jeff Katzenberg's portion of the company (the "K" in "SKG") merging with animation studio and partner PDI. The company currently owns the rights to the
DreamWorks trademarks, used under license by Paramount and Steven Spielberg's new Indian-backed
DreamWorks operation. After Spielberg's previous animation studio
Amblimation shut it's doors, most of its animators moved to
DreamWorks too.
Katzenberg came roaring out of the gate with his new animation studio with the film,
The Prince of Egypt, an animated Biblical epic meant to compete directly with Disney. Oddly, what was meant to be Dreamworks's signature animated film looks like it was made by a completely different studio entirely
to people who are only familiar with the more recent Dreamworks animated films. (A fine article about the environment in which
Prince was made can be read
here.
). Unfortunately, the lavishly budgeted, but artistically timid film (with all the religious communities it strove to appease), film proved a bitter disappointment,
While this success influenced DA's tendency to be derivative, the company soon found a more creative success in partnership with
Aardman Animations with
Nick Park creating hailed cinema like
Chicken Run and
Wallace & Gromit Curse Of The Were-Rabbit. Meanwhile, while DA's in-house cel animation films like
Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron and
Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas proved a hopeless box office cause, in part because of the typcial North American
All Animation Is Disney prejudice,
Computer Animation was another story entirely. While blatant
Follow the Leader variant of Pixar's
A Bug's Life,
Antz, proved a surprisingly big hit in 1998, DA really came alive on its own with the smash success of
Shrek in 2001. Using DA's penchant for
rampant celebrity casting and for modeling the characters from their movies
after the actors voicing them to the max, this film finally put DA on the map as a real competitor in the feature film market, permanently opening the door
Disney largely held shut for decades.
Post-
Shrek, they became known for sticking various pop culture references and crude bathroom humor into their films as well with films like
Shark Tale and
Madagascar, hitting its
nadir in 2007 with
Shrek The Third and
Bee Movie all disappointing at least critically and Aardman breaking away from DA. Beginning in 2008 however, the studio was regarded to have
grown its beard with a new crop of films arising with what was perceived to be an increased focus on story, characters, and quality. So far, this new direction has been paying off handsomely in the box office worldwide.
Originally rivals with
Disney; currently rivals with
Pixar. Disney alum Jeffrey Katzenberg has, of now, produced more films in his animation studio alone than
Walt Disney did when he was alive! While the quality of the films have been more inconsistent than Disney, the best of the bunch manage to reach for Disney and Pixar quality (with
How to Train Your Dragon sharing a director team with
Lilo & Stitch). In fact, in 2011, DWA
exceeded them in critical reception with
Kung Fu Panda 2 (RT 82%) and
Puss in Boots (RT 81%) considered far and away superior films to Pixar's
Cars 2 (RT 38%) and both were nominated for the Best Animated Feature Oscar while the Pixar film was shut out. Furthermore,
KFP 2 outgrossed
Cars 2 as well in the box office worldwide. In short, a Katzenberg dream come true that year.
However, the lower-than-expected box office performances and lowering company value in the recent years has influenced Katzenberg to back off on his previous announcement about a slew of sequels in the next decade, and may make him have second guesses about his goal of establishing another Disney Company. As it is, the company's current distribution contract with Paramount is not going to be renewed as that company's getting back into animation itself after the success of
Rango while DWA will be looking for a new home while also considering the option of distributing its films itself.
Dreamworks' filmography
Live Action work (Through PDI; either prior or after merging):
Tropes for Dreamworks Animation:
- All Animation Is Disney: All non-Pixar CGI is credited to these guys under this trope.
- And sometimes Dreamworks CGI animation is even falsely credited to Pixar, or Dreamworks' traditional animation is mistaken for Disney.
- Amplified Animal Aptitude
- Arch-Competitor: Pixar Animation Studios.
- Balloonacy: How that kid in the logo gets to the moon.
- Be Yourself: Often very important in pushing the main characters before the climax.
- Cash Cow Franchise: Being an independent company specializing in animation and hounded by unpleaseable stockholders, DWA has to develop every successful property into one. For instance the Shrek has made over $2 Billion from the four movies alone, and that's not counting merchandising while Kung Fu Panda and How to Train Your Dragon are becoming the company's new bedrock ones.
- Celebrity Voice Actor: One of the most egregious perpetrator of this trope. Every last one of their movies has an All Star Cast (save for How to Train Your Dragon).
- Disneyesque: All their hand-drawn animated films.
- Dreamworks Face: Trope Namer and Codifier.
- Dueling Movies/Follow the Leader: Earlier on in their history, before they decided to go in a "light fantasy" direction to counter Pixar's more "epic" films, they were notorious for copying the template of whatever Pixar film was being developed at the same time. Examples include Antz vs. A Bug's Life and Shark Tale vs. Finding Nemo.
- Genre Shift: While of course not uncommon for a film studio, it's just a bit jarring to go from serious adaptations of biblical text to parody comedies just within the first three years. And it's also having another Genre Shift in combining "heavy" and "light" elements more effectively with Kung Fu Panda and How to Train Your Dragon, creating the company's next foundation franchises to replace the Shrek series.
- Getting Crap Past the Radar
- Hans Zimmer: Produces the soundtracks for all their movies.
- Ink Suit Actor: Among the most notorious examples.
- Medium Blending: With Rough Draft Studios on The Simpsons.
- Parental Bonus: Where to start?
- Stunt Casting: A side effect of having more celebrity actors than important characters.
- Trailers Always Lie: This seems to be their modus operandi since Kung Fu Panda. The movies tend to have more substance compared to the trailers.
- Trailers Always Spoil: An egregious case as it looks like DWA won't stop having big spoilers in their movies like the trailers for Mega Mind.
- Troperrific: It's no secret that the folks up at the studio are very Genre Savvy, and they seem to have gotten a better hang around using well-ingrained story tropes- star examples include Shrek (a Take That to Disney as well as an Affectionate Parody of fairy tales), Kung Fu Panda (a send-up of the Unlikely Hero and Wuxia), How to Train Your Dragon (fantasy Coming of Age Story with dragons), and Mega Mind (an Affectionate Parody of Superman and the superhero genre as a whole).
- Unpleasable Fanbase: Or rather unpleasable investors. Really, DWA has in recent years proven itself reasonably consistent in creating successful films both critically and financially and still each release has their stock going up and down like a roller coaster, even when they have shown their films have proven good box office staying power and enormous international appeal.
- What Could Have Been: They nearly got John Kricfalusi to direct for them, but after meeting the executives, he backed out.
- There are dozens of whole films that were never made. These include Punk Farm, Boo U, and Truckers.
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