DreamWorks Animation Cuts Production, Restructures Its Slate of Movies
With the recent success of The Croods and the current success of Oscar nominated and Golden Globe winning, How to Train Your Dragon 2— DreamWorks Animation have also experienced their own shortcomings in the past few years. So, it comes as no real surprise they have decided to reign in some of their slated movies.
Some of DreamWorks Animation's most high-profile failures came in the way of Rise of the Guardians ($83 million in losses), Turbo ($13 million in losses), Mr. Peabody & Sherman ($57 million in losses). With those results, the company has announced a restructuring of its core feature animation projects, focusing its feature production from three films per year down to two a year.
Newly appointed Co-Presidents of Feature Animation Bonnie Arnold and Mireille Soria have made the move to try and avoid facing another series of box office misses. This has refocussed the company to work on six feature length movies over the course of the next three years, rather than their originally slated nine movies over the course of three years. With them now scheduled to release two movies per year it breaks down to one original film and one sequel every year.
The new slate of movies includes; Kung Fu Panda 3 (18th March 2016), Trolls (4th November 2016), Boss Baby (13th January 2017), The Croods 2 (22nd December 2017), Larrikins (16th February 2018) and How to Train Your Dragon 3 (29th June 2018). There is now news on what status Madagascar 4 or Puss in Boots 2: Nine Lives and 40 Thieves currently hold given this new restructuring.
“The number one priority for DreamWorks Animation’s core film business is to deliver consistent creative and financial success,” said DreamWorks Animation Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Katzenberg. “I am confident that this strategic plan will deliver great films, better box office results, and growing profitability across our complementary businesses.”
The reduction in feature length movies DreamWorks Animation are now in production of will result in 500 jobs being lost across all locations and divisions of the studio.
