Dreamworks Animation in Trouble

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disneyprincess11
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Dreamworks Animation in Trouble

Post by disneyprincess11 »

“How to Train Your Dragon 2″ didn’t prove to be enough of a box office fire-breather for Wall Street, sending the share price of DreamWorks Animation sliding more than 12% on Monday.

The animated sequel opened to $50 million domestically and picked up in an additional $24.8 million from 26 international territories. However, going into the weekend some analysts had predicted that the film would open to north of $60 million. The company’s stock was down more than $3 on Monday morning, trading at $23.94.

While DreamWorks Animation has made steps to branch out into different areas of the media business, buying YouTube powerhouse AwesomenessTV and signing deals with Netflix for instance, the frosty reception from investors demonstrates its fortunes remain inexorably tied to the theatrical performance of a handful of films.

“The stock is definitely going to being volatile to opening weekends given that they only have three movies per year and they’re not diversified enough with TV and other things to help offset weaker openings,” said Eric Wold, an analyst with B. Riley and Co.

Part of the disappointment is that three of the studio’s most recent four films — “Rise of the Guardians,” “Turbo” and “Mr. Peabody and Sherman” — have resulted in write-downs and the “Dragon” sequel was seen as a Tiffany franchise for the studio. Moreover, the summer has been devoid of animated offerings, all of which seemed to signal a huge opening for the film.

Reviews for the sequel were strong, but “22 Jump Street” proved to be a $60 million smash, which likely ate into its box office take. Parents who may have been inclined to take their kids to see “How to Train Your Dragon 2,” could have been convinced to hire a sitter and check out the R-rated comedy instead.

“Where it finishes is more important than where it starts,” said Marla Backer, an analyst with Ascendiant Capital Markets. “It’s a disappointing debut, but does it signal the film will fall short? I’m not sure.”

A spokeswoman for DreamWorks Animation did not immediately respond to a request for comment. However, it should be noted that the studio’s stock took a tumble following the 2011 openings of the first “How to Train Your Dragon” and “Kung Fu Panda 2,” both of which turned into hits.

Moreover, the studio’s films tend to have legs at the box office. Unlike most major tentpole releases, the pictures are not front-loaded. The first “How to Train Your Dragon” did five times its opening weekend over the course of its domestic run, and there are still several major foreign markets left to open such as China, Brazil and Mexico. The international reception could prove more critically important than the stateside one.

“The opening weekend domestic box office, in terms of framing the final global box office, is not what it used to be in terms of importance,” argued Ben Mogil, an analyst with Stifel Nicolaus, in a note to investors.

The film also has a nice runway, given that the next animated film to open, “Planes: Fire & Rescue,” doesn’t land in theaters until July 18. That presents an opportunity to make up lost ground.

For now, Wall Street is watching to see if DreamWorks Animation can turn a sprint into a marathon.

http://variety.com/2014/film/news/how-t ... 201221179/
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Re: Dreamworks Animation in Trouble

Post by dvdjunkie »

Who really cares what Wall Street has to say about whether a movie is good or bad.

$50 million isn't a bad number for a first weekend, and the positive reviews will help this film garner more than a $100 million in the next couple of weeks.

I saw the film along with my grandkids and I thought it was a better movie than the first one, and I really liked the first one, along with the television series that it spawned.

Forget about Wall Street, they are the reason we are all living in some sort of financial distress. Gas prices are out of bounds because of Wall Street speculators, and most all of the other things that go into the cost of living are higher because of speculators on Wall Street. I never pay attention to them anymore, not since the crash of 2008 after our despot 'ruler' was elected, and I lost in excess of $80,000 that I will never recover. So, piss on Wall Street and watch the movies you want to watch and don't give a care about what some idiot in NYC says about it.
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Re: Dreamworks Animation in Trouble

Post by disneyboy20022 »

I think with all the good word of mouth going on of the film it will generate more money.

Also the first film was 4 years ago, so that's a long gap and part of the reason it didn't open $65 million. $50 million is pretty good and I think it will easily make more given everyone the good word of mouth and will easily stretch it's legs.
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Re: Dreamworks Animation in Trouble

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I couldn't really care less anymore if DreamWorks Animation is in trouble or not when they've played such a large part in infesting theatrical animation with nothing but CG movies and influencing Disney away from 2D animation themselves. I probably wouldn't even care if DreamWorks went out of business because they clearly don't care about anything but CGI. I'd rather still have Steven Spielberg's Amblimation studio than have DreamWorks Animation for a studio.
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Re: Dreamworks Animation in Trouble

Post by dvdjunkie »

2Disney4Ever Note:

You need to quit whining about 2-D animation because it is basically gone, save for some 'flash 2-D' animated shows on Disney Channel.

Times have changed and for the kids today, they are happy to have animated movies no matter what they are. This generation wouldn't know a 2-D animated movie from a CGI one, except that as parents and grandparents we show them Blu-rays like "Dumbo", "Cinderella", "Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs", and movies from the original canon.

Take your whining some place else. You are getting on a lot of people's nerves around here.
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Re: Dreamworks Animation in Trouble

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dvdjunkie wrote:2Disney4Ever Note:

You need to quit whining about 2-D animation because it is basically gone, save for some 'flash 2-D' animated shows on Disney Channel.
Who's going to accept "gone" for an answer? I won't, obviously. I'm just stating why I don't care about DreamWorks as a studio. And no, Flash cartoons don't truly count in my book. Whenever I talk about wanting 2D animation back, I'm always referring to the good kind of 2D animation.
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Re: Dreamworks Animation in Trouble

Post by Atlantica »

If it can hold on, will certainly gain money back. Too many films these days are way too front loaded; only seem to be around a week then disappear!

I've not seen it myself so can't judge on the quality of the film itself, but the last handful of Dreamworks films I've hated.
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Re: Dreamworks Animation in Trouble

Post by ajmrowland »

I'm going to see it this week. Hopefully tomorrow.

To me, animation is animation. It's one thing to have medium preferences. Those are perfectly fine. but to be vehemently against a medium is to completely misunderstand the concept of animation at its core, which is to breath life into something inanimate, or into something that's not real.
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Re: Dreamworks Animation in Trouble

Post by taei »

Such a shame..

Dragon 2 was an amazing movie. So so so so amazing.

A thing that a lot of fans of animation will appreciate is that the concept art made it's way to the movie.
This movie looks phenomenal. I had the artbook before I went to see the movie and I couldn't believe just how close the final product is to the concept art. A true feat to witness, especially in the big screen.

Also, this movie is DARK! It's so close to what Disney used to make in the 90s. It's that good!

I've seen it 4 times so far, and I know i'm done seeing it.
It's amazing!!!

If I had to choose if it was better than Frozen, my answer would be: WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY Better.
It's that good. XD

DreamWorks needs a filter system lol.
From the past movies:
Dragon 2: Amazing.
Peabody: BAD
Turbo: Skipped.
The Croods: A pleasant surprise.
Rise of guardians: Bad.
Madagascar 3: Eh..
Kung Fu Panda 3: Amazing.

so of the 7 movies that I watched, I only liked 29% of them, and appreciated 1 of the movies.
That is bad for a company.
I really hope the international market pulls them out of this.
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Re: Dreamworks Animation in Trouble

Post by Walter »

Dreamworks has always been a mixed bag for me. They have made some really great films, but then, they have made some really terrible clunkers that deserve to rot.

Dragon 2 looks like one step forward, but their next 2 appear to be 2 steps back (especially that horrid "Home") for the studio.
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Re: Dreamworks Animation in Trouble

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I've already said this before, but at this late point in time I just feel now that animation would have been a lot better off without DreamWorks as an animation studio. They've really done a lot more harm to the animation industry than good.
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Re: Dreamworks Animation in Trouble

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2Disney4Ever wrote:I've already said this before, but at this late point in time I just feel now that animation would have been a lot better off without DreamWorks as an animation studio. They've really done a lot more harm to the animation industry than good.
Do you like their earlier hand drawn work before they went fully CG?
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Re: Dreamworks Animation in Trouble

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universALLove wrote:
2Disney4Ever wrote:I've already said this before, but at this late point in time I just feel now that animation would have been a lot better off without DreamWorks as an animation studio. They've really done a lot more harm to the animation industry than good.
Do you like their earlier hand drawn work before they went fully CG?
The 2D movies they were making didn't really interest me, but at least then it seemed like they valued hand-drawn animation. Now they're one of the most Anti-2D studios out there with their corrupt beliefs that hand-drawn movies are a dead art, existing solely to get rich off of CGI and doing their part to push the "all animation is CGI" agenda. And I fear that Disney will one day be just like them if they keep going in their current direction. That's why it disappoints me that Chris Sanders wants to help a studio like that if he sincerely cares about 2D work, because he should know that they care only for CGI and nothing else.

Everything wrong with theatrical animation today can be traced back to DreamWorks and the whole "Antz vs A Bug's Life" fiasco, because they were the ones who created unneeded CG competition in the animation market, and it just spread itself like a bad infection as the years went on. They can never pin the blame on 2D animation not being good enough anymore when it's ultimately their own fault that it's faded away. They never should have tried to compete with Pixar, cause one CG studio was all we needed.
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Re: Dreamworks Animation in Trouble

Post by ajmrowland »

I've enjoyed most of their films, but their darker ones have always rubbed me the right way.
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Re: Dreamworks Animation in Trouble

Post by Linden »

I don't really understand why HTTTYD2 didn't make waves. When I saw it, I thought it had the potential to start a whole new type of movie: the animated epic. I thought it was fantastic, even with it's flaws.

It saddens me to see DreamWorks struggling. I like a lot of their movies (HTTYD films, ROTG, Shrek, Kung Fu Panda 2, their 2Ds). They have what it takes to make great movies, but for some reason, they usually don't, and their great movies aren't as influential as they should be.
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Re: Dreamworks Animation in Trouble

Post by MeerkatKombat »

I watched the home trailer and it doesn't look like it is going to rock cinemas.
I'm not sure how old Rihanna's character is supposed to be but Rihanna sounds too old for a teenage girl.
I also got a lilo and stitch vibe from it.`
They have had so many films under perform I am wondering how they keep going. To be honest, very few of their films have tempted me. I quite fancied the Croods but haven't seen it yet. Only caught rise of the guardians because it was on TV and it was no masterpiece.
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Re: Dreamworks Animation in Trouble

Post by ajmrowland »

Both the Croods and Rise were good. Same with the Dragon sequel. It was a great time.
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Re: Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney?

Post by DisneyEra »

Hey even CGI animation can have problems:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/d ... dly-749777

Outside of their Franchises Shrek/Madagascar/Kung-Fu Panda & Dragons DreamWorks Animation is in disarray. And this proves that CGI is just a medium & doesn't guarantee Box Office $$$, even from a major studio.
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Re: Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney?

Post by Lady Cluck »

There's a glut of animated movies these days, and movies in general, especially summer blockbusters. People have to spend their money wisely and maybe they've realized most of the shit Dreamworks puts out isn't worth paying for. I sure as hell wouldn't spend any money on the vast majority of their films (I'll either sneak into the theater or wait to watch on TV or the internet). Disney putting out quality films again has put more pressure on lesser animation studios. I get a thrill whenever I see a Dreamworks has underperformed, and I nearly faint with joy whenever I read about more Dreamworks layoffs :twisted: :dance:

It's nothing personal, but trying to shove out 3 mediocre movies a year is a little ridiculous.
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Re: Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney

Post by disneyprincess11 »

Wow, BOO is just like The Good Dinosaur then.

And LC, shame on you. These people have no jobs now!
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