Will Disney buy DWA? No! Universal did!

[Randall]

Hopefully we still see 3. 2 is a decent hit, actually, its only failing is that expectations were ridiculously high... and that DWA was getting desperate for a hit.

[ShyViolet]

That's good to know. I really loved seeing Hiccup as a man and can't wait to see what happens next.

[Ben]

I think 3 will be made, only perhaps on a tighter budget leash. It sounds as if future character development on older versions has already been done, so it shouldn't be too hard to bring things down to a more manageable level of cost, even if the resulting film is maybe shorter. Dragon 2 will make enough to warrant the third creatively, though, with international and home video factored in, so I don't think we'll be left in the dark there.

[EricJ]

And just off the front page headlines:

Dreamworks Animation In Concert
http://www.pitchengine.com/pitches/1fcb ... ebook=true

(Wow, imagine a whole orchestra playing "Funkytown", "Who Let the Dogs Out" and "Kung Fu Fighting"...)

[Randall]

I have to admit, that was funny.

[ShyViolet]

An addendum to what was posted on the front page:

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

More talk of "marketing" and "distribution". Ugh.

[EricJ]

An addendum to what was posted on the front page:
http://animationguildblog.blogspot.com/ ... e.html?m=1
More talk of "marketing" and "distribution". Ugh.

"Jeffrey is trying to replicate the Mouse House by branching out in ways Walt Disney Productions expanded in the fifties and sixties."

No, he's trying to replicate the Mouse House by BUYING the Mouse House, spare part by spare part, from whatever exiting/fired executive or director he can grab coming out of the back exit.

"But look how well they did with the Dragon movies!" Yeah. That's why he's buying up old spare genuine Disney parts.

[ShyViolet]

Hmmm.....

http://www.thestreet.com/story/12827360 ... en=RSSFeed

[TitusTodd]

And, of course we know where HTTYD's Chris Sanders came from...

[Ben]

I think that was Eric's point!

Interesting read, Vi. I don't think DWA's woes are going to go away...I just can't see Penguins and Panda 3 changing those fortunes, with both movies tracking softly and Home barely registering on any fronts, except for animation geeks, so far.

I've always thought that DW wound be a good fit for Warners. With their deal at 20th now, they're kind of locked in to a studio that already has a strong animated/family pipeline, and they're going to get marked down to Blue Sky and Fox Family's output if they can't produce a hit big enough to warrant Fox's investment and slim percentage fees. But Warners have never really gotten into the feature animation game with any real conviction, so a deal with DW would have given them a stronger animation producer that they could have perhaps powered with better distribution and integration with their classic characters.

However, now even they have Animal Logic (not that this is a big brand-ish name with regular audiences) and so maybe the ship has sailed there. It just seemed to me that DWA's taste for big commercial movies fit pretty well with WB's taste for, um, big commercial movies. In a way it would be cool for them to end up at Disney's (for many obvious reasons), but I think they'd do better to set up a more permanent shop with a major studio that doesn't have such a strong in-house producer. This way, they wouldn't be *so* reliant on franchises and sequels, and would be able to test the limits more, with the likes of Me And My Shadow more of the norm than just Madagascar 3, 4, 5, etc...

[ShyViolet]

Oh boy. This is even worse than that Kung Fu Panda lawsuit:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/pomerantz ... MABaXQtDMD

[EricJ]

Investors ALWAYS sue blindly optimistic/overextended companies for "not telling them" the profits would go down after a bad season, it's traditional.
Not a good sign (like, proof that they're in deep public poopie), but traditional.

[Ben]

I think the legal jargon has you spooked there Vi...this is a pretty usual "creative accounting" suit by the brief looks of things.

Whatever happened to that Panda suit? Did they settle in the end?

[ShyViolet]

Yeah, DreamWorks won:

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=4522

[ShyViolet]

Don't worry Dragon 3 wishers, D2 was actually a very big hit, so a sequel is more than likely:


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