BREAKING: DreamWorks Will Shut Down PDI/DreamWorks Studio

`http://www.cartoonbrew.com/business/breaking-dreamworks-animation-will-shut-down-pdidreamworks-studio-over-500-jobs-will-be-eliminated-108161.html

This is terrible...

I'm not surprised, given the bad performance for Dream Works' recent films. This is very sad news, as this was the studio that helped Dream Works Animation make Shrek and Madagascar. I feel bad for the employees there. The main thing to blame for all this nonsense is bad management on Dream Works Animation's behalf.

Damn, that's awful.

Dang. Looks like we have the Fall of the Dreamworks Empire.

I feel bad for them. IIRC, their movies haven't been making a lot of money.

Damn...they did play a notable part in my childhood (Road to El Dorado <3), so to see them actually go down like this is nothing but soul-crushing.

Oh, damn. I was never a huge fan, but they did some good stuff.

Dreamworks... They put out some actually awesome stuff, while making some awesomely awful decisions. Saw this coming, unfortunately.

Outsourcing to save money is one more thing to worry about - which is likely what's going to happen if Dreamworks is to stay afloat at this point, too...

This is really sad news. I really enjoyed some of Dreamworks films, but I kind of saw this coming when their movies weren't selling recently.

Ouchie, this is sad. I never realised they were doing so poorly.

Yikes...

Maybe another fault is all the big summer blockbusters releasing when Dreamworks decides to actually give us a serious animated film like How to Train Your Dragon.

Oh yeah, they had to release How to Train Your Dragon 2 around the same time as Captain America Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy had to come out. So, does that mean that Kung Fu Panda 3 is not coming out?

Muppets Most Wanted came out when Captain America came out.

edited 23rd Jan '15 6:10:10 AM by powerpuffbats

Woah, that's huge! I hope that doesn't mean Dreamworks is going to die soon. That'd suck.

They're not out quite yet, but this is definitely bad. The fact that sequels are now a mandate is pretty bad though.

Yeah, that's a shame, really. Maybe they should've taken that offer from Hasbro a few months back. At least then the layoffs might not have been so huge and they would have had financial backing...

But thinking about it, has any Dreamworks movie lost them money? Why are the layoffs so huge if they're making money off all of their films? Are they really sinking money on everything else?

EDIT: I just found out it wasn't their Animated films that did them in, but their Live Action Films when they left Paramount screwed them over (Specifically, I Am Number Four, Cowboys And Aliens and Fright Night) and put them in deep debt. That sucks even more that their Live Action output is causing the death of their Animation department...

edited 23rd Jan '15 8:57:10 AM by DingoWalley1

Animation and live-action split off some time ago

Thanks to Hollywood Accounting, it's hard to tell which movies are literally considered failures, but I do know that since the last Shrek movie, the only ones they've deemed a financial success were Madagascar 3 and The Croods.

So no more animated dreamworks films?

No, they're scaling back to producing two movies a year. Though now, they're mandating a new sequel each year.