This is basically a wholesale buyout of DreamWorks IP which will be given to Illumination to turn into more Minions movies.
One of the things that saddens me most about this deal is that there are likely many talented artists and engineers down in Glendale who will be let go as a result of this consolidation. I would love to be proven wrong, but that is my hunch.
In addition, I get the impression that Comcast is interested in owning already existing IP more than nurturing the Dreamworks Animation team to generate NEW stories and content. If that is the case, it seems short sighted.
Sold at >50% premium to Tuesday's close of its publicly-traded stock price. This is not "wholesale." And the human assets remain very much a key part of the company's value and values.
And for less than half of what disney paid for pixar, despite having made more movies.
>And the human assets remain very much a key part of the company's value and values.
Illumination, who is taking the reigns, is the costco of animation. In the entire United States Illumination has 35 employees.
If you don't think there is a bloodbath coming, then I have a bridge to sell you.
Are... Are you trolling me?
Dreamworks has already undergone several rounds of layoffs recently. http://bit.ly/1uzveR9
Animation/VFX is already heavily outsourced, and it's not getting better. Dreamworks has already said they are outsourcing future work to canada. http://bit.ly/1P8FKX8
Illumination already outsources all their work to other countries (France in particular). Government subsidies from non-US countries has already gutted US VFX/animation, and pretty much ensures nothing but executive level positions remain at big studios.
There is zero US job security, and those going into the industry only have three guarantee's : long hours, low pay, and frequent moves to keep steady work.
Tweening some crap Panda movie in Canada doesn't mean they laid off the entire city of Glendale.
"Nothing but executive level positions remain at big studios" -- Really? This is the cherry atop your preposterous, cherry-picked rant. Thousands of amazing animators bleed in the 91xxx zip codes daily.
EDIT: tons of open job listings (search various sub-categories like 'Animator' if this is too broad for you). http://www.indeed.com/q-Animation-l-Burbank,-CA-jobs.html
EDIT #2: http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=Animator&l=Burbank%2C+CA
Those aren't exactly dying steel town numbers.
>Thousands of amazing animators bleed in the 91xxx zip codes daily.
You're right. They're bleeding because they can't find a steady job that pays them a living wage.
There can only be so many small boutique studios before the market is saturated, and I expect we are already there. We're at a point that even the best animators the US can produce struggle to find reliable employment. It's a goddamn shame.
I know lots of great animators at ILM and Pixar who are doing very well for themselves.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DreamWorks_Animation#Feature_f...
This is hollywood. Take the budget, double it, and add 50 million dollars and then you have an accurate idea of the true budget. To be "profitable" the reported boxoffice needs to be at least 3X the budget. For example, Sherman and Mr.Peabody had a budget of "150 million", made 300 million, but dreamworks still lost 57 million making the movie.
Known flops of the last two years are : Home, Penguins of Madagascar, Sherman and Mr. Peabody, Turbo, Rise of the Guardians.
Only The Croods and HTTYD were profitable.
Plus DVD rights, streaming, and broadcast rights do bring in some extra money too.
Link with an itemized, Hollywood Accounting-style breakdown:
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100708/02510310122.shtml
If I have to explain myself to IRS why I bought 1TB drive instead of 500GB because in their opinion I did not have enough to backup, hence supposedly I attempted to defraud IRS on extra $6.00 of tax, why can they get away with hundreds of millions or even few billions?
Hollywood executives swerved away from the dog, having watched enough movies to know that's how villains get made.
And to be honest, I'm not sure if the IRS cares since the profit gets taxed at some point in time.