Dreamworks Animation Gets Ambitious

A few days ago, Dreamworks Animation revealed their schedule for an ambitious slate of movies to be distributed by new partner 20th Century Fox, twelve titles in the next three and a half years. To put that into perspective, Dreamworks has only released eighteen CGI features in total since 1998, including a few odd Aardman and PDI titles. PIXAR has only done thirteen since they started in 1995. The full list is below.

The Croods (March 22, 2013)
Turbo (July 19, 2013)
Mr. Peabody & Sherman (Nov. 1, 2013)
Me and My Shadow (March 14, 2014)
How to Train Your Dragon 2 (June 20, 2014)
Happy Smekday! (Nov. 26, 2014)
The Penguins of Madagascar (March 27, 2015)
Trolls (working title, June 5, 2015)
B.O.O: Bureau of Otherwordly Operations (Nov. 6, 2015)
Mumbai Musical (working title, Dec. 19, 2015)
Kung Fu Panda 3 (March 18, 2016)
How to Train Your Dragon 3 (June 18, 2016)

There are only four sequels in the mix, which is a relief, though I guess "The Penguins of Madagascar" is more of a spinoff, especially since there's that Nickelodeon cartoon of the same name currently airing. "How to Train Your Dragon" is definitely being positioned as the studio's next major franchise, with the next two sequels scheduled in prime summer territory. "Kung Fu Panda 3," on the other hand, wasn't announced until earlier this year, and will be the first project of Oriental DreamWorks, the new Shanghai based studio. In a similar vein, the Mumbai musical formerly known as "The Monkeys of Bollywood" is going to be spearheaded by Dreamworks' production studios in Bangalore, which opened shop in 2008. Add the stateside campuses in Glendale and Redwood City, California, and Dreamworks is certainly building up the infrastructure it's going to need to handle all these different films.

As always, the big concern is that by ramping up the quantity of features, the overall quality is going to go down. I'm also a little worried about the amount of animation that 20th Century Fox is going to be handling. They also have their own animation studio, Blue Sky, that does the "Ice Age" movies and has "Epic" coming out next spring, though Blue Sky only releases about one movie a year. Animated films are notoriously complicated and require years to complete. The idea that Dreamworks Animation could be delivering four different films in one year, at this stage in the studio's development, is kind of mind-boggling. Disney has only managed numbers like that once or twice, and that was when they were partnering with multiple studios like PIXAR that were working mostly independently. It's a big gamble for Dreamworks to bank on their being able to get the Indian and Chinese units up to speed fast enough to meet some of these deadlines. From the state of "Puss in Boots," which was the first big project of the Bangalore studio, they still have a ways to go. I'm going to be very, very surprised if we don't see a few of these dates moved back or even a project or two dropped along the way.

It's always difficult to tell when you haven't seen any of the footage yet, but I'm the most excited about some of the non-sequel projects. "Me and My Shadow," will be a combination of CGI and hand-drawn animation, and feature a shadow taking control of the boring human he's attached to. "Happy Smekday!" is an adaptation of a children's book by Adam Rex, and is about a Christmastime alien invasion. And though it can't possibly be the film that I want it to be, I am very curious about what Dreamworks is going to do with "Mr. Peabody & Sherman," based on the old Jay Ward cartoons. On the other hand there are some oddball projects on the list like "Trolls," which is based on the kitschy troll doll toys with the rainbow hair that I thought had gone out with the 90s. Also, it's a little disappointing not to see any mention of projects like "Interworld" "Captain Underpants," and "Truckers," which we know Dreamworks has the rights to. Guillermo Del Toro is namechecked in the latest press release, but there's no sign of the horror story "Alma," which he's supposed to be working on the development of.

Still, it's going to be a couple of very interesting years for Dreamworks, and we'll see if they can pull this off without cannibalizing themselves or getting too squeezed by an increasingly competitive feature animation industry. We're at the point where we're regularly seeing about ten to twelve major American animated features every year, and if Dreamworks' strategy is a success, we may see even more. The Weinstein Company has already beefed up their acquisition slate and will be releasing four animated films next year.

It's a good time to be an animation fan. Let's enjoy it while it lasts.
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