What if DreamWorks Pictures/DreamWorks Animation was founded in 1934?/DreamWorks Animation

DreamWorks Animation, LLC (more commonly known as DreamWorks Animation and DreamWorks Animation SKG, or shortly DWA) is an American animation studio which is the animation arm of DreamWorks Studios, a subsidiary of Universal Studios, a division of Comcast through its wholly owned subsidiary NBCUniversal.

It is based in Glendale, California and produces animated feature films, television programs and online virtual games. The studio has currently released continuous line-up of animated feature films, including the franchises Headin' South, All Dogs Go to Heaven, The Dreamtoons Movie, Kung Fu Panda, Puss in Boots and How to Train Your Dragon and other hits including Elefriend, Wonderland, Trolls, Paulie, Shrek, The Cat in the Hat, A Series of Unforntunate Events, Hotel for Dogs, Monsters vs. Aliens, Rise of the Guardians, The Croods, Home, The Boss Baby and Captain Underpants.

It was founded on August 30, 1934 as Works Productions, founded by Dream Elysian Works, along with her older brother Mike Ollie Works, as it was exclusively produced cartoon short films and formerly animated advertisement films for various products just as Coca-Cola, and others. Later, the studio then expanded into a feature production in 1938, starting with its first film Headin' South in 1942. In 1949, the studio also expanded itself to produce live-action productions, such as the series of live-action shorts, and later to its continuous line-up of live-action feature films, with its first being 1955's The Road to El Dorado. During that time, the studio's nameless animation department was named into DreamWorks Cartoon Studio (1955-1979), DreamWorks Animation Studios (1980-1986) and DreamWorks Feature Animation (1987-1990).

In October 1994, Dream Elysian Works retired from DreamWorks Studios as she sold her studio to the current founder of Amblin Entertainment Steven Spielberg, former Walt Disney Studios' chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg, and music editor for Geffen Records David Geffen to take over as the new CEOs for DreamWorks, along with its divisions. DreamWorks also hires Amblin Entertainment former animation branch Amblimation alumni to work at its animation division, as old DreamWorks Animation staffs passed on from thier lives and retire.

DreamWorks Animation currently maintains its Glendale campus, as well as satellite studios in India and China. On August 22, 2016, NBCUniversal acquired DreamWorks (which included DreamWorks Animation) for $3.8 billion, making it a division of the Universal Filmed Entertainment Group.

Currently, DreamWorks Animation continues to produce films using both traditional animation and computer-generated imagery (CGI). The studio has earned TBD Academy Awards, as well as TBD Emmy Awards and numerous Annie Awards, and multiple Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations.

Films produced by DreamWorks Animation were formerly distributed worldwide by DreamWorks Pictures, from 1955 to 2005, Paramount Pictures from 2006 to 2012, and 20th Century Fox from 2013 to 2017. Universal Pictures will distribute subsequent DreamWorks Animation films.

Dream Elysian Works era (1934-1994)
On August 30, 1934, Dream Elysian Works, along with Mike Ollie Works, her brother, founded Works Productions in Glendale, CA, after defunct and left her first company in New York, New York Comic Studio. During the same year, it got started producing series of cartoon short films starring the studio's first animated star Joey Kangaroo (formerly known as Kangaroo Kid) for Liberty Pictures as its distributor for three years, as well as producing advertisement cartoons for various products like Coca-Cola, Budweiser, Ford, etc.

Two years later, Works Productions created Lil' Mule as its new character, and his series along with the Joey Kangaroo series were combined into a series of cartoons known as Joey Kangaroo's Funny Adventures. Around late 1930s, Joey Kangaroo's Funny Adventures was renamed to Dreamtoons after introduced new cast of characters such as Goldy Locks and Five Funny Foxes, and started to produced non-Dreamtoons shorts since 1940 with the release of Toyland.

In 1938, the studio started to begin expanding by focusing developing its first animated feature film, after being caught the attention by the first animated Technicolor film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs which was produced a year ago by Walt Disney Productions. During the the same year, Dream E. Works pleased its new distributor Republic Pictures to distribute its first cartoon feature, but due to Republic's refusal, Works then asked Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for its distribution only for its feature films, which MGM accepted as it let its own animation house to join partnership with Dream E. Works Productions.

Dream E. Works' first animated movie was Headin' South, which tells the story about a young duckling who is attempting to go south with the other ducks, takes three years for its making. The original plan for its film release around late 1941 but pushed to 1942. During the production of Headin' South, Land After Dinosaurs also began it production originally as a feature film as well, which latter was originally pitched to be realistic, due to animation being demonstrated of realism, including Walt Disney already did with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (by animated the human characters) and his new animated feature that were in the development of that time Bambi, also, the tone of Land After Dinosaurs was pitched to be darker and more serious, inspired by Walt Disney's Fantasia segment The Rite of Spring, until however it got changed into a cartoony-look comical-tone featurette due to the budget cuts before it got released on early 1942.

However, the attack on Pearl Harbor that happened during the second World War during that time after the Headin' South 's completion, but Dream E. Works had no choice but never let her first feature animated film delay for long time, as she demanded it for it releasing in theaters due to the film's completion.

On November 11, 1942, Headin' South was released, which, like most animated films in the time, received positive critical reception, but was a box-office failure due to World War II, and was not released outside from America until the war ended in 1946.

TBD

Spielberg, Katzenberg and Geffen (SKG) era (1994-present)
On October 12, 1994, Dream E. Works has come to her retirement after selling out her company to a trio of well-known entertainment figures, film director and producer Steven Spielberg, former Walt Disney Pictures executive Jeffrey Katzenberg and music executive David Geffen. Spielberg brought over artists from his London-based studio, Amblimation, while Katzenberg recruited some of the top animation staff from Disney, to take the place of old DreamWorks animation staffs, after they were also retired and/or passed away. 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 (PDI owned 60% of PDI, LLC, while DreamWorks SKG owned 40%). 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 was in the talks with Aardman Animations, to co-produce and distribute Chicken Run (2000), a stop-motion animated film already in pre-production. Two years later they extended the deal for four additional 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 produced in the United States.

Three years later, DreamWorks 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 focus on both hand-drawn animation and CGI animation. In 2004, the releases of Puss in Boots and Shark Tale also made DWA the first studio to produce two CGI animated features in a single year.

On January 31, 2006, DreamWorks SKG entered into a distribution agreement with Paramount Pictures to purchase the worldwide rights to distribute all the films, including previously released films, until the delivery of 13 new animated feature films and TBD live-action films, or December 31, 2012, whichever came last.

DreamWorks' partnership with Aardman ended after the release of Flushed Away in November 2006, having delivered three out of five films. The announcement was made before the film's release, on October 3, citing "creative differences". DreamWorks retained the co-ownership of rights to all films co-produced with Aardman, with an exception being Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005), which starred Aardman characters and for which they only kept the worldwide distribution rights.

On March 13, 2007, DreamWorks announced it would release all of its films, beginning with Monsters vs. Aliens (2009), in stereoscopic 3D. Together with Intel, they co-developed a new 3D film-making technology, InTru3D.

In 2008, DW extended its production for DreamWorks Animation pipeline into Bangalore, India, where they established a special unit within Technicolor, named DreamWorks Dedicated Unit. The unit is owned by Technicolor, but DreamWorks hires and trains the animators, who then contribute to DreamWorks projects. DDU at first worked only on TV specials, such as Merry Dreamtoons (2009), Scared Dreamtoonless (2010), and DVD projects. Eventually they started contributing to DreamWorks' feature films as well, beginning with animating part of a CGI/live-action film The Smurfs (2011).

Since 2009, DreamWorks Pictures has been a regular guest on the list of Fortune Magazine 's 100 Best Companies to Work For. As the only entertainment company on the list, they ranked 47th in 2009, 6th in 2010, 10th in 2011, 14th in 2012, and 12th in 2013. During the same year, DreamWorks Pictures made its deal with Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures to internationally distribute its feature films aimed at mature audience, while Paramount announced for its continuation of releasing DreamWorks' family films until 2012.

n July 2012, DreamWorks won a $155 million bid to acquire Classic Media, which includes re-acquiring the rights to the four animated films which the company produced with Rankin/Bass, to DreamWorks Classics banner. In August 2012, DreamWorks Animation formed a joint venture with Chinese investment companies to establish a Shanghai-based entertainment company, named Oriental DreamWorks, to develop and produce original Chinese films and their derivatives.

According to a Los Angeles Times report, DreamWorks Pictures was in talks with Sony Pictures to distribute its upcoming family-friendly films, which includes animated family films such as the 2013 releases of The Croods, The Smurfs 2: Misadventure in Paris, Turbo, etc. The report also mentioned a possibility where Sony would handle the United States distribution while 20th Century Fox would handle the international distribution. Renewal of the deal with Paramount was also open, but only with more favorable terms for Paramount (they even offered a one-year extension of the deal, but Katzenberg desired to get a better deal). In August 2012, DreamWorks signed a five-year distribution deal with 20th Century Fox for all territories. However, the deal did not include the distribution rights of previously released films, which DreamWorks acquired from Paramount later in 2014. Rise of the Guardians (2012) was the last DreamWorks family film to be distributed by Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Animation's The Croods became the first DreamWorks family film film to be distributed by 20th Century Fox.

On April 11, 2013, DreamWorks Pictures announced that it has acquired the intellectual property for the Trolls franchise from the Dam Family and Dam Things, since the company found success of its 1994 animated film version. DreamWorks Animation, which has "big plans for the franchise", has become the exclusive worldwide licensor of the merchandise rights, except for Scandinavia, where Dam Things remains the licencor. In the same year, the studio announced a CGI/live-action remake of Trolls.

In June, the rights to Felix the Cat were acquired by DreamWorks Classics from Felix the Cat Productions, owned by Don Oriolo. DreamWorks then purchased Paramount's distribution rights to the pre-2013 library in July, and since then, DreamWorks Pictures' then-distribution partners with both Disney and 20th Century Fox has distributed the library on their behalf until 2018, in which DreamWorks' sister studio Universal Pictures has assumed these responsibilities.

The studio was reported to be acquired two separate times in the end of 2014. First, in September it was reported that the Japanese conglomerate SoftBank was in talks to acquire DreamWorks for a price of $3.4 billion, but the next day, it was reported that SoftBank had withdrawn its offer. Next on November 12, it was reported that Hasbro was in talks to buy DreamWorks family entertainment library for Hasbro Studios in November, which would lead to DreamWorks Pictures to produced only mature films after the deal was done, but as a matter of policy, neither Hasbro nor DreamWorks publicly comment on mergers and acquisitions. Two days later, the talks were reported to have failed through.

In December 2014, DW sold a 25% stake in AwesomenessTV for $81.25 million to the Hearst Corporation.

On January 5, 2015, DreamWorks Studios announced that Bonnie Arnold, producer of the How to Train Your Dragon series and Mireille Soria, producer of the The Dreamtoons Movie series were named co-presidents of the studio's animation division. At the same time, it was also announced that Bill Damaschke will step down from his position as Chief Creative Officer. So far, under Arnold and Soria's current tenure they signed Jason Reitman and Edgar Wright to work on their own animation debuts. Two weeks later, PDI/DreamWorks completely shut down as part of its parent company's larger restructuring efforts.

Universal Pictures era (2016-present)
On April 28, 2016, Comcast officially announced that its NBCUniversal division intended on acquiring DreamWorks Studios for $3.8 billion, valuing the company at $41 per share. Jeffrey Katzenberg was to remain involved in the company as head of DreamWorks New Media, but was to cede control of the studio to Illumination Entertainment's CEO Chris Meledandri, who would oversee both Illumination and DreamWorks Animation. The sale was approved by board members, but subject to regulatory approval.

At Guggenheim Partners' TMT Symposium, NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke discussed how the purchase of DW would fit into its business strategies. Burke explained that Meledandri planned to "take a lot of the existing DreamWorks Animation's films and franchises and add value as we create new franchises", and that the main goal was to "[take] the low-single-digit returns of the movie business and turn it into a different kind of business" by creating new intellectual property that can be merchandised and adapted into theme park attractions. Burke reaffirmed a commitment to animated features, stating that Universal would be able to release as many as four animated films per-year, divided between DreamWorks Animation and Illumination Entertaiment. Burke also outlined that the purchase would be beneficial to Universal's expanding presence in China (where it is building a new Universal Studios park in Beijing). Two of DreamWorks' last family films with 20th Century Fox were the computer animated film Captain Underpants and a CGI/live-action remake of Elefriend. DreamWorks' first animated film with Universal Pictures was Busytown, which was released in 2018.

Other animated films such as How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World with Abominable, Trolls World Tour, The Croods 2, The Boss Baby 2, and Spooky Jack are in the development.

On June 21, 2016, the acquisition was approved by the United States Department of Justice. The purchase was closed on August 22, 2016; DreamWorks Studios and its divisions are now operate as a division of the Universal Filmed Entertainment Group.

Although a spokesperson stated that Meledandri would work with Universal Pictures to determine "the most effective path forward for Illumination Entertaiment and DreamWorks Animation", he did not take over DreamWorks' animation label as was previously announced. Bonnie Arnold and Mireille Soria retained their positions as co-presidents of DreamWorks Animation, while Margie Cohn will lead a DreamWorks Television's animation division for the entire Universal Pictures group. DreamWorks' digital, marketing, consumer products, and gaming divisions will be absorbed into NBCUniversal.

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