DreamWorks
DreamWorks is a failed film studio created by Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen in 1994 to take on Disney and kill Mickey Mouse. Harvey Weinstein had planned to join in but was too busy honing his craft as a serial sex pest.
DreamWorks had hoped to cash in on Steven Spielberg's God-like ability to turn ropey film properties and coin it in Hollywood gold. By cutting out Universal Pictures who had all the distribution/fun fair rights to films like E.T. and Raiders of the Lost Ark, Spielberg and the others expected their latest whizz-bang ideas would be equally popular. In that they were wrong. Ironically, in their struggle with Disney as the Home of Animation, DreamWorks ran out of money and were then sold out to Paramount in 12 years and then after an abortive attempt to go back independent, ended up distributing their film product via Disney!
DreamwWorks had lasted as a separate identity as about as long as the Third Reich. Nowadays DeamWorks is part of Universal and occupy a hut next door to a Starbucks. In the live-action department, DreamWorks is primarily known for brothers-in-arms war movies. Prior to the success of Shrek, DreamWorks's animation department was known for quality Biblical traditionally-animated movies animated by underpaid, starving, ready-to-go-postal Korean orphans who were kicked out of a Nike factory. Since then, they have mostly regressed into CGI talking animal pop culture hackjobs that provide worthy box office competition to Pixar.
Origins[edit]
Jeffrey 'the Weasel' Katzenberg as previous head of Disney had long wanted to have his own studio. Unable to raise enough loot to create the 'Katzenberg studios', he cleverly lined up with Director Steven Spielberg and music label owner David Geffen. Each believed their different talents would somehow gell into a viable entity. They were aware that a stand alone film studio was already something that had become extremely uncommon on the Hollywood scene as so many film companies were part of something else. There were exceptions. Disney had been one of those studios that retained their independence, relying on good old fashioned nepotism and copyright control over their animations to retain profitability, if not exactly world-beating movie projects.
Adult Disney?[edit]
Dreamworks wanted to be a new Disney but with more of an adult approach. This meant the jokes could be a lot more openly adult instead of the coy, sex-free style of Disney. This is how Shrek was conceived. This was followed by Antz, Shrek 2, Shrek 3. Then the money run out and it was realised that Spielberg's glory days were behind him. The founders then bailed out and sold out to the House of the Mouse.
Film
| Film world: | Academy Awards ♦ AFI (American Film Institute) ♦ Bollywood ♦ Film colorization ♦ Golden Raspberry Awards ♦ Hays Code ♦ Horny Awards ♦ Internet Movie Database ♦ Lens flare ♦ Roger Ebert ♦ Screenwriting ♦ Gene Shalit ♦ UnReviews |
| Studios: | 20th Century Fox ♦ Disney ♦ DreamWorks ♦ MGM ♦ Paramount ♦ Pixar ♦ Sony Pictures ♦ United Artists |
| Narrators: | David Attenborough ♦ Morgan Freeman ♦ Movie Trailer Announcer Guy |
| Types: | Albanian interpretationalist cinema ♦ B-movie ♦ Cult film ♦ Film noir ♦ Independent film ♦ Parody film ♦ Sequel ♦ Snuff film ♦ Western |