Friday, February 6, 2009

If You Build It, He Will Come...


Holy crap!

Just when you think the chance Disney had to snag Spielberg and company(literally) was gone the way of the Dodo Bird... boom!

It looks like the deal for Universal to distribute Dreamworks films has fallen through and the Mouse is the one to benefit from it, according to Nikki Finke. I wonder how Jeffrey Katzenberg feels about this. I mean, I know he has a grudge against Disney, but that's really a grudge against Eisner. Yes, I know Dreamworks is two different companies between live-action and animation, yada, yada, yada.

Expect a formal announcement by Monday...

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Someone on either this site or another site wondered if anyone saw Spielberg sitting by Iger at the Inauguration. They wondered what that might mean. I thought - nothing - Dreamworks is at Universal. So now we know the truth. - Very Secretive.

Honor Hunter said...

Hmmm...

I wonder what this means for those dinners that Iger met with Katzenberg, Anonymous...

Anonymous said...

Does this mean Roger Rabbit may finally make his triumphant return?

Anonymous said...

A new Roger Rabbit film would be hard to pull off. We would all love to have a sequel but it would be very hard for it to live up to the original.

Honor Hunter said...

The same could have been said of "Toy Story" and IMHO the sequel is better...

It all depends on the story.

Anonymous said...

I agree - there's no reason a Roger Rabbit sequel couldn't be at least as good as the original (and no reason it couldn't be better - the original had a lot of plot holes, plus Roger was a bit too much of a pill at times). After all, technology has grown explosively since Roger made his big-screen debut. What would be difficult would be getting permission from all the various studios to lend their characters to the film - you know, mixing Bugs Bunny with Mickey Mouse; that was tough to do the first time, legally and logistically speaking.

As for Disney/Dreamworks...perhaps the rift that turned Katzenberg from a Disney reviver to Disney rival can at last be mended. If that happened, and if the Muppets could be sold to some other poor schmuck, then most of the damage inflicted by Eisner's reign could at last be undone.

Anonymous said...

I agree with the above Anonymous, except for his negative slant against the Muppets.

The Muppets should stay at Disney and are better off being at Disney than with any other company. They're in the middle of making a big comeback (this time, for real) and are still very capable of making a comeback and becoming relevant again, so being respectful of the Muppets would be in one's best interests.

Anonymous said...

the negative take on the muppets is (sadly) dead on and Disney isn't really doing anything with them. Perhaps they need someone less corporate than Disney to give them back their edge.

Anonymous said...

A Roger Rabbit sequel would be great but I would just be happy to see the character even in shorts. Let's hope that part of the negotiations include letting Disney fully use the character.

Justin said...

It's a done deal:
http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSTRE5185PV20090209