Will Disney buy DWA? No! Universal did!

[ShyViolet]

Well I guess it's finally happening, although not by Disney which I still think would have been great. Wonder what will become of DWA now. Here's some more:

http://animationguildblog.blogspot.com/ ... g.html?m=1

[EricJ]

Well, they wanted to appeal to an Asian market--No surprise the foreign buyers are the only ones who wanted them.

[Dacey]

Am I the only one who's never heard of "SoftBank" before now? Normally when these takeovers happen, the buyers is at least well-known.

[ShyViolet]

Cool retrospective of what happened 20 years ago at Disney, etc....a lot of it is common knowledge by now but there are some cool little insider stories too:

http://m.hollywoodreporter.com/entry/view/id/301802

[ShyViolet]

It's official:

http://deadline.com/2014/09/dreamworks- ... nk-842395/

[Randall]

Veeeeeeery interesting! JK finally got his deal done. I'm very curious as to what this will mean for the companys future projects, in and out of film production. More of the same, or a new approach? And will JK stick around?

And, of note: the article speaks of HTTYD2's grosses as a positive!

[Ben]

It's not a done deal yet, and speculation is that it's about to fall apart.

Not looking too good for DWA right now...their only suitor may be about to bail and now they're very vulnerable as they've played their hand too early in announcing/confirming they're for sale (reminding us, folks, that it's *always* just about the money, sadly), which will now push their stock prices down since no-one will buy them for that price.

What a fisaco! If SoftBank (no, you may not of heard of them, but I bet you know several companies and brands they are behind) does happen, the plan is for JK to have a five-year deal to stick around, which is of course the only thing that matters - never mind all the actual creatives that make the magic happen.

SoftBank, for their share, want access to DWA's library of films and characters, as well as an in-built infrastructure to turn out more. The DWA we know will cease to be, and instead it will all be even more about franchises that can be spread across various media, SoftBank being a big player in the mobile phone market. I'd expect JK would stick around in a hand-over capacity, marking time until his five years are up before DWA becomes its own thing under SoftBank. He'll likely stay in a small LA outpost office with minimal staff while the animation is outsourced to India, Singapore and Japan.

Of course, it could all be good too: Sony hasn't, until recently, interfered with Columbia's output over the years, and it could be that they let JK continue to run things...but it's not expected. Even more than shareholders, the investors would want to see a continuing run of hits and leverage of characters that they can use on their devices and in deals with other carriers. More than ever, DWA would become a content company only, different from aspiring to artistic, creative and commercial ambitions that was once the foundation of the company.

It is a shame someone in the US hasn't seen this as a sign to put in a late bid offering, because I think Warners or Fox would be good partners (yes, I know there's feeling that they should go to Disney but, really, it's most unlikely to happen for three or four reasons, and just where in the Disney line-up would DWA sit? Certainly not with JK there, and I would suspect the label would be dismantled and the staff folded into Disney or Pixar Animation), but clearly even they don't see the value in DWA at the moment, which has got to be a particular sting for JK from Fox seeing as they're supposedly partners at the moment (Fox, on the other hand, is probably still smarting from losing LucasFilm).

Interesting times...it's clear the future of DWA is now shaky, or at least will be very different moving forward one way or the other, but the deal isn't done yet (of course, the insider chatter that's led to this speculation might now lead to a snap decision to go through, which could be even worse as a deal will be rushed), though it does seem the DWA we once loved and have seen dwindle recently, will be no more other than maybe seeing those final sequels to Panda, Dragon and Madagascar through.

Whatever else we can take from this, it's that JK is attempting to seal something before Penguins comes out, which doesn't make it look like he has much faith in that to turn his company's fortunes around, does it...?

[ShyViolet]

I guess I jumped the gun there. Sorry if it caused any confusion.

I still believe that out of all the scanarios Disney buying DWA would be the "best." At least Dis would own their films and the properties wouldn't be likely to get sold off like they might of a big conglomerate buys them.

Like Ben said what a mess...and so sad. So much potential back in 1994, and so much of it down the drain. First DreamWorks gets split up in 2004 and now this...basically everything that people feared would happen to Disney in 1984 when Saul Streinberg almost took over...again, what a mess.

[EricJ]

And apparently, the headlines now have SoftBank softening their bid on DWA, and leaning more toward the never-fail money machine of....Legendary Pictures!
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/j ... ary-736612

(Oh, sometimes these punchlines just write themselves--They gave up on the dim future of Kung Fu Panda, for the long-run future of Man of Steel! )

[Ben]

Well, no...

You need to keep up, Eric - as per Warners' capacity to decide who they partner with on their owned properties, Legendary has been cut out of the Man Of Steel/DC/Justice League cycle. They're not part of that production pact anymore, which is part of the reason they bolted to Universal.

They'll still be part of WB's Godzilla and Pacific Rim franchises, because they ponied up the majority of the money and brought those properties to their WB deal at the time, but in return Warners used their power of veto to invest in the following DC films themselves, without any outside funding, so as to reap all the rewards themselves. Nice, huh?


On the DWA deal...I wonder if JK sabotaged it himself? It's clear the news leak came from the DWA side of things...either to leverage a better asking price or to see who else might be interested. Either way, the gamble didn't work and now the nobody-wants-to-own-them DWA's stock will probably tumble as they've lost a buyer and it's clear there isn't another natural home for them.

Next up: another company (not Disney; I just can't see it happening or JK wanting to accept that level of defeat) will step in and make a snap purchase offer, which JK would accept so as to secure a future for himself, or indeed SoftBank may do the smart thing and re-enter talks now that their walking away may have pushed the price down.

Either way, it's a bleak situation for DWA, though I can't but help be thinking about the staff there and all the talented people whose lives are being toyed with just as pieces in a slice of deal making - and deal making that isn't even that momentous...here was JK probably testing the waters to see what kind of price he could achieve and probably got miffed when he realized it couldn't hit Pixar heights or even what Disney payed for LucasFilm!

The stock will likely fall to under $3bn now (half a billion less than JK was asking for) and the uncertainty of the company, and what that does for morale, will almost certainly drop even lower. The best case I could see right now would be for Fox to extend their distribution to a buyout, although the company would have done better to stay at Paramount, which is still without a full animation provider now that Warners seems to have pacted with Animal Logic (who even then also have their Sony deal gearing up on that Betty Boop movie).

I still think Fox would at this point be the better option, though Paramount is the better fit (due to all the Nickelodeon tie-ins, too) and Warners might have provided something of a safer home...but these are strange times for DWA that's for sure...

[LotsoA113]

The moment I saw that headline about them softening on buying DreamWorks, my first thought was "Man, Ben was really dead-on on that one!"

The problem DreamWorks faces now is that each of the six major studios have an animation studio. Even Paramount has started up Paramount Animation (which as a SpongeBob movie and Monster Trucks next year), which leaves very little room for it be acquired, though maybe one of the major independent studios like Lionsgate could pick 'em up. It certainly is a difficult time for them, though I will say their next few movies feel more assured for financial success, especially Penguins.

[Ben]

Told ya...the latest is that the SoftBank deal may not be dead, but with JK overplaying his hand they'll be able to come at him for a lower share price, so it's basically gambling tactics on their part to get a better deal (all while JK is apparently also again trying to woo Murdoch's Fox, who have also passed at least once, into snapping up the company to keep everything "in house").

Still think Paramount would have been the most obvious option: Paramount Animation is unproven so far and is essentially an off-shoot of Nickelodeon Films, so it wouldn't have clashed with that, and really it could have been folded into a new DreamWorks-Paramount Animation entity that combined the DWA, Classic Media and Paramount/Nickelodeon cartoon properties into one - actually pretty impressively huge - new force to be reckoned with a massive amount of potential.

But, rather than saner heads prevailing at this point, it's going to be all about who can give JK his mythical $4bn figure he's after (or close to it)...

[ShyViolet]

Even though I know he's not as involved as he once was it's still so hard to imagine DWA without him...


http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/en ... story.html

[Ben]

Well, he's far from leaving yet! Any deal would have a five-year hand-over period, so he'd be around if not as involved, and the truth is that we probably wouldn't see a difference from the DWA of the past three or four years.

With the purchase of the Classic Media properties, DWA has already indicated under JK that it wants to become a more streamlined content company and that's what SoftBank are interested in. It won't be pretty, but as I said above, the DWA of the future will be an even more commercial animal.

[ShyViolet]

Some more on what's been going on:

http://animationguildblog.blogspot.com/ ... e.html?m=1