DEAN COSTELLOE
CENTRE NUMBER: 14715
CANDIDATE NUMBER: 9058
PRODUCTION COMPANY RESEARCH
DREAMWORKS SKG
DreamWorks Animation SKG is an American animation studio based in Glendale, California that creates animated feature films, television programs and online virtual worlds. The studio has released a total of 31 feature films, including the franchises of Shrek, Madagascar, Kung Fu Panda, How to Train Your Dragon, Monsters vs. Aliens and The Croods. As of November 2014, its feature films have grossed $13 billion worldwide, with a $419 million average gross per film. Shrek 2 and Shrek the Third are among the 50 highest-grossing films of all time, and fifteen of the films are among the 50 highest-grossing animated films, with Shrek 2 being the sixth all-time highest. Although the studio also made traditionally animated films in the past, as well as a co-production with Aardman Animations, all of their films now use computer animation. The studio has so far received three Academy Awards, as well as 22 Emmy and numerous Annie Awards, as well as multiple Golden Globe & BAFTA nominations. In recent years, the animation studio has acquired and created new divisions in an effort to diversify beyond the high-risk movie business.
The studio was formed by the merger of the feature animation division of DreamWorks and Pacific Data Images (PDI). Originally formed under the banner of DreamWorks in 1997 by some of Amblin Entertainment's former animation branch Amblimation alumni, it was spun off into a separate public company in 2004. DreamWorks Animation currently maintains its Glendale campus, as well as satellite studios in India and China.
Films produced by DreamWorks Animation were formerly distributed worldwide by the live-action DreamWorks studio, then by Paramount Pictures, a subsidiary of Viacom, who acquired the live-action DreamWorks studio in February 2006, and spun it off again in 2008. In 2013, 20th Century Fox, a subsidiary of 21st Century Fox, took over distribution of DreamWorks Animation films starting in 2013 with The Croods and onwards.
On October 12, 1994, a trio of entertainment players, director and producer Steven Spielberg, music executive David Geffen, and former Disney executive Jeffrey Katzenberg, founded DreamWorks SKG. To build the talent base, Spielberg brought over artist from his London-based studio, Amblimation, while Katzenberg recruited some of the top animation staff from Disney. Some of Amblimation's artists came to DreamWorks in 1995, when the studio's last feature was completed, with the rest doing so following the studio's closure in 1997.
In 1995, DreamWorks signed a co-production deal with Pacific Data Images to form subsidiary PDI, LLC. This new unit would produce computer-generated feature films, beginning with Antz in 1998. In the same year DreamWorks SKG produced The Prince of Egypt, which used both CGI technology and traditional animation techniques.
In 1997, DreamWorks partnered with Aardman Animations, a British stop-motion animation studio, to co-produce and distribute Chicken Run, a stop-motion film already in pre-production. Two years later they extended the deal for an additional four films. With Aardman doing stop-motion, they covered all three major styles, besides traditional and computer animation. This partnership had DreamWorks participating in the production of stop-motion films in Bristol, and also had Aardman participating in some of the CGI films made in the United States.
Three years later, DreamWorks SKG created DreamWorks Animation, a new business division that would regularly produce both types of animated feature films. The same year DW acquired majority interest (90%) in PDI, and reformed it into PDI/DreamWorks, the Northern California branch of its new business division. In 2001, Shrek was released and went on to win the first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film. Due to the success of CGI animated films, DWA decided the same year to exit hand-drawn animation business after the next two of total four hand-drawn films. Beginning with Shrek 2, all released films, other than some co-produced with Aardman, were expected to be produced with CGI. The releases of Shrek 2 and Shark Tale also made DWA the first studio to produce two CGI animated features in a single year.
