Will Disney buy DWA? No! Universal did!

[ShyViolet]

I agree Dacey...it wasn't really about the animators at all (Pixar sent a bouquet of flowers to PDI when Shrek opened), but like you said it was among the big players: Eisner and Katzenberg. Like Ben said, when Eisner left Disney in 2005 JK's drive to humiliate and destroy Disney was all but gone, and that's when so much of the filmmaking process went awry. (Not to mention that when Iger took over and reached out to JK, including him in the Little Mermaid DVD, etc...the "rivalry" was done.)

Keep in mind that JK believed his entire reputation was built on Lion King--during our insane national mania for it, during and since--and his attempt to get a piece of credit for his years at Disney didn't exactly make him any more publicly self-effacing for it.

People were already beginning to write about JK's contributions to animation in the Oliver and Company days. It wasn't like Lion King suddenly pushed him to glory. He already had a pretty great reputation.

Also, it wasn't Spielberg's idea to go all epic-serious but JK's...JK told him: "I want to make Indiana Jones. I want to make Terminator 2." And Spielberg told him: "Then you should make The Ten Commandments." It was a suggestion, not a request.

[EricJ]

How long has the so-called "war" between DreamWorks and Disney really been going on for, though? Maybe among the big heads, I guess, but I always felt it spoke volumes when I saw that Pixar had a Shark Tale poster up in their offices. And the Shrek commentary has several genuine compliments to Disney, and heck, Andrew Adamson was even brought aboard to helm their mega-budget Chronicles of Narnia (which probably hurt Shrek the Third, but I digress).

I don't think Pixar felt "threatened" by DWA, even if the SharkTale poster may have been meant humorously.
They're a little more aware of creating their own distinct artistic and versatile style, and aren't caught up in burning-resentment feuds as the other studio, otherwise an Antz poster might be hanging on the wall.
(And certainly Adamson didn't feel he had to personally "fight back against the Rat" with the same passion that Shrek's executive did, particularly when the chance to direct a childhood-favorite book came along...)

Even if Lasseter didn't feel "threatened" by DWA, there was still the need to eye them carefully around the silver.
One of the reasons the early Pixar first-teasers to Up, Incredibles and Ratatouille preferred to be so artistically ambiguous, isolated and baffling about their specific plots ("Huh? WTF??--This movie looks stupid!") wasn't just to deliberately tease the audience, but to deliberately tease their competition, as "somebody" might end up stealing the specifics of a new unused idea--Apart from a sequel like Cars 2 or Monsters U, where we all knew about the first movie already.
And the poster on the wall showed they had more than a sneaking suspicion from experience WHO.

[Dacey]

Except that by the time a teaser for a Pixar movie rolled around, the plot summary would already be on the internet, and with the exception of Up, they were all pretty clear about what they were about, so...

Also, Shark Tale and many other DreamWorks films had former Disney veteran animators working on them (including Ken Duncan), which makes it quite possible that they were also friends with Pixar animators, so...

[EricJ]

I agree Dacey...it wasn't really about the animators at all (Pixar sent a bouquet of flowers to PDI when Shrek opened), but like you said it was among the big players: Eisner and Katzenberg. Like Ben said, when Eisner left Disney in 2005 JK's drive to humiliate and destroy Disney was all but gone, and that's when so much of the filmmaking process went awry. (Not to mention that when Iger took over and reached out to JK, including him in the Little Mermaid DVD, etc...the "rivalry" was done.)

Shrek's big joke that fueled the mania in the Eisner-Wars days of '01 was what we all believed at the end of the 90's, after we all thought musicals had been coming out of our ears:
Disney Is Fairytales, and Fairytales Are Disney, and they have nothing but happy twittering princesses in them.

We were happy enough to believe that after Pocahontas and Hunchback (oh, you do know some audiences hated that one, don't you?), and certainly most of that misdirected "tantrum" directly sank Hercules at the box office in '97.
Certainly a lot of the cult-mania for Lilo & Stitch was not only fueled by fans who thought "It doesn't look like a Disney movie!", but let their Eisner-hatred blur their memories as to what they thought a Disney movie did "look like"...And Treasure Planet ended up paying the price for that one.

And then we know what happened afterwards: Ding-dong, Eisner was dead, Chicken Little became the best statement you could make for why Disney SHOULDN'T make Dreamworks movies, and then Tangled came along and everyone thought it did "look like a Disney film". (Even though we had Enchanted in between as our last big hurrah of disingenuous Snow-White-Bashing.)
Eisner had literally staked his entire studio, and the next four films in the franchise, on a joke that simply wasn't getting laughs anymore, and probably never would again. He became what he spent most of career at DWA being--An outdated dinosaur, and tagging along a few years behind the works made by better studios.
It's a problem you can change by either changing with it, or being in stubborn, petulant denial about it. Guess which course the Lion King Genius chose.

[Dacey]

Even though we had Enchanted in between as our last big hurrah of disingenuous Snow- White-Bashing.

"You are a sad, strange little man, and you have my pity."

[Dacey]

As was suspected...

http://variety.com/2017/film/asia/china ... 202006264/

[Ben]

Yep...and I wouldn't be surprised if Everest either gets cancelled before animation begins, or is sold off to Oriental DreamWorks and becomes the first film to be released under whatever new name they come up with. But with only 100 staff and no sign of ramping up a crew to take on production, I'd say, at this point, that Everest was dead too.

After PDI, India and China, only Glendale continues...and how long do we see that happening while France can churn out those Illumination movies at one or two a year for under $75m?

Let's face it: there's always been confusion between the DWA and DreamWorks Studios names, and Universal now have two ostensibly competing animation units producing more films than they have slots for. I think they will use the DWA resources to ramp out a few last franchise films, but curb any originals, and focus on Illumination, which in many ways has kind of become the new DreamWorks anyway.

My only hope is that they keep the DreamWorks name in there somewhere when they inevitably do shut down or merge the unit properly with Illumination, but I don't think Chris Melendandri would be too pleased. So sad.

[ShyViolet]

Yes, it is. . Also, can't believe I started this thread like three years ago! So much has happened, none of it good.
I remember how concerned we all were about what was going on at DWA, but I don't think any of us really thought it would come to this...(well, maybe Ben did but he knows a heck of a lot! )

[Ben]

Well I didn't *know*...but I have enough experience to take an informed guess! Sadly correct in this case.

[EricJ]

Yep...and I wouldn't be surprised if Everest either gets cancelled before animation begins, or is sold off to Oriental DreamWorks and becomes the first film to be released under whatever new name they come up with. But with only 100 staff and no sign of ramping up a crew to take on production, I'd say, at this point, that Everest was dead too.

Because it's seen as a "Chinese product", with cultural content, if it isn't dead, it'll be bought out by whatever Chinese studio(s) ODWA becomes, and pretty much end up like "Rock Dog".

Frankly, I'd heard "Everest" and immediately pictured that IMAX travelogue film from the 90's, or that narrative remake they did a few years ago.
"A girl & her Yeti?"--I can already picture how DWA would have done it (they didn't believe her!...She's got to bring one home to prove it!), and I ain't waiting up nights.

[Dacey]

I'm too lazy right now to dig up whatever Spirit thread we may have hidden away somewhere in the archives...

http://animatedviews.com/2017/72631/

[Randall]

Wow. Develop Netflix content at all costs, apparently. Though really not too high a cost, as evidenced by the cheap-looking CGI. Hard to believe there will be any sort of audience for this.

[ShyViolet]

Yeah definitely. Looks SO much like a cheap rip-off from some tiny studio. . *hangs head*

(Btw I don't mean anything against people who work at small studios.)

[Bill1978]

I couldn't even finish watching the trailer the animation was that bad. And I have watched a lot of 'dodgy' animation cause of my Godson. If I didn't see the DreamWorks logo in front of it, I would have thought it was a knock off Spirit. It s crazy to think the same studio who is making the Dragon TV series and Trollhunters TV series, made that.

[Dacey]

As I said in my Trolls Blu-ray review, I'm not sure who the audience is for this. The movie came out nearly 15 years ago, but maybe it still sells well on DVD?