Wednesday, April 29, 2009

It's Amazing What A Dollar Buys...

Take that Eisner! Take that Eisner! Take that Eisner! Take that Eisner! Take that Eisner! Take that Eisner!

Jeffrey Katzenberg signed with DreamWorks Animation for another four years...

He'll be the head of the company he founded for at least until 2013 with a salary of $1 a year plus stock options. I guess this means we can look forward to more pop-culture jokes and crude humor?

Seriously, Katzenberg deserves credit for creating an animation company out of nothing and making it the primary competition for the Lamp in a little more than a decade. Sadly, the Mouse's own animation house hasn't been in the game for the last decade. Maybe this holiday season that will change. Ironically with a movie very much like the ones produced in the late 80's/early 90's under Kazenberg.

If anything, I look forward to the projects that DreamWorks is coming up with. Kung Fu Panda has raised the bar and expectations for it's sequel and the films(How to Train Your Dragon, Master Mind, Truckers, ect.) that come after it.

Time will tell...

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is unrelated to Dreamworks, but Robert Zemekis told MTV that a Roger Rabbit sequel is in the works!!!

Kevin Bruehl said...

The primary competitor for the Lamp, meaning PIXAR? Not in a million years. I guess a lot of people must like Dreamworks and that's perfectly all right, they made a couple decent films. PIXAR and Disney make the best quality animated films in the world. John Lasseter is going back to the roots of 2D animation with the Princess and the Frog which looks phenomenal, another classic based off of a lovable fairy tale. Dreamworks has only made one really good animated movie, and that was Kung Fu Panda, really funny and good cast. Everyone also loves Shrek, and while I admit I liked the first one, the sequels weren't any good and if you listen carefully, the actors weren't even trying anymore for the third one, though I admit I liked how they made fun of the classic Disney princesses. I'm looking forward to seeing Master Mind, sounds original and has a funny plot. Dreamworks focuses on star power, not story, (Will Smith and Angelina Jolie in Shark Tale, seriously?) PIXAR focuses on story and chooses the best actors. I enjoy Disney's more with their stop-motion, 2D animated films and 3D PIXAR films, the most lovable animated films, and I hope they keep making 2D films after Princess ahnd the Frog, certainly looking forward to Repunzel. I too am looking forward to Kung Fu Panda 2.

Honor Hunter said...

Kevin, I was referring to the box office, in which case DreamWorks is definitely competition for Pixar.

In many cases lately they've even made more money. This wasn't a post on quality, it was one based on power and they're definitely the primary competitor.

I agree that KFP is their best film and their only one to be of Pixar quality...

Anonymous said...

It's interesting if you actually look at the top ten CG movies (domestic and international) -

1. Shrek 2 - 919 million
2. Finding Nemo - 864
3. Shrek the 3rd - 798
4. Ice Age meltdown - 651
5. Incredibles - 631
6. Kung Fu Panda - 631
7. Ratatouille - 621
8. Madagascar 2 - 594
9. Wall-E - 534
10.Madagascar - 532

I'd say that's safely within the "million years" marker for commercial competition.

t said...

It's interesting to see the comparisons with Jeffrey's movies when at Disney (and I have heard of some of the crazy notes he gave the teams)...compared to the ones he now makes with Dreamworks?

Anonymous said...

rarely enjoy dreamworks animation, but Kung Fu Panda was a nice surprise :) it is hard to top PIXAR. simple as that.

Anonymous said...

It's also interesting that Stanton and Bird seem to have more of a commercial touch than Lasseter himself.