Earlier this year, Dreamworks CEO and animation chief Jeffrey Katzenberg admitted to Charlie Rose, “in terms of the expectations, we were never, ever going to live up to our own hype.”

Given their recent return to their staggeringly successful Shrek franchise with Shrek Forever After and the international release of Nicole LaPorte’s The Men Who Would be King- an attempt to explore the company’s rise into a major player at the beginning of the last decade to a profitable company reliant on the international distribution of Paramount to distribute their films- there has been an international re-examination of the Dreamworks ethos and their triumphs and failings over the past 16 years.

In 1994, three of Hollywood’s major players- former boss of Disney’s Animation Division Katzenberg (who was recently axed from his role due to personal issues with Disney boss Michael Eisner), producer-director Spielberg (hot off the astonishing one-two success with Jurassic Park and Schindler’s List) and mogul David Geffen- envisioned Dreamworks as a filmmaking studio that would join the five major studios of Fox, Universal, Paramount, Disney and Warner Bros. The three men imagined Dreamworks as an innovative merger of ambitious live-action productions headed by important filmmakers and subversive, though pioneering animated productions, using their respective skills in animation, live action storytelling and entrepreneurship.

Here, News Hit will explore the highs, lows and eventual resurgence of the company that Vanity Fair writer LaPorte calls “one of the most colourful, drama-ridden and human places I have ever seen or read about”.

Animated Storytelling

In the mid-‘90s, Katzenberg- a sharp, savvy executive who steered Disney productions from a crumbling, post-Walt Disney period of indifference into the dynamo, Renaissance-era of The Little Mermaid, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Aladdin, The Lion King and the Best Picture-nominated Beauty and the Beast- immediately set to work to differentiate Dreamworks from his old master.

Katzenberg not only hired major film stars like Will Smith, Robert DeNiro, Brad Pitt, Jack Black and Ben Stiller and acknowledge them with live action credits, but he also has the heft and clout to recruit big names like Jerry Seinfeld and Nick Park for key creative roles in their productions, letting these creative mavericks loose with the keys to the kingdom, as well as pouching some key creative forces from his old days at Disney, including hit-machine screenwriters Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio (Katzenberg worked with the two writers on re-writes on the then-troubled Aladdin project and brought them to help bring Shrek to the screen). Unlike, say, Pixar or the earliest stages of Disney animation division, Dreamworks actively sought the input of outsiders from its fledging animation division, recognising its relative inexperience and understanding the importance of recruiting talent (the major exception to Pixar was the inclusion of Brad Bird, formerly a key creative director on The Simpsons and director of the acclaimed, but unsuccessful Warner Bros. Animation, The Iron Giant, who was invited by former colleague John Lasseter to bring new creative input to the company).

Whilst Dreamworks did allow its artists to grow and develop into directors, the company developed little thematic coherency: flitting between the loving, intelligent artistry and elegance of Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Ware-rabbit, Kung Fu Panda and How to Train Your Dragon with the more inane commercial intentions of its more crass entertainment like Monsters vs. Aliens and Madagascar.

Dreamworks has been an environment where Katzenberg’s crass- though, for the most part, accurate- commercial instincts have run riot, mixing broad, visual humour, scatological pop-cultural references and big-name voice actors to later success (in fact, Katzenberg has been punished for his creative ambition, as the more ambitious productions of the Dreamworks cannon- the serious Moses-retelling The Prince of Egypt, horse opera Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron loving Hammer Horror-pastiche Ware-rabbit and Seinfeld’s baby Bee Movie tanked in the U.S. when the likes of Madagascar have succeeded). Shrek- which embodies the Dreamworks animation ethos of smart laughs and heartfelt sentiment- was a particularly sweet victory of Kaztenberg (after all, he was kicked out of the House of Mouse at the height of their success due to an ugly dispute with studio boss Michael Eisner, and the film is nothing if not an endless piss-take at his old bosses, right up to the unexpected happy ending and the Eisner-influenced characterisation of the villain). The film was a vindication for Katzenberg’s commercial tendencies and eye for successful material, mixing hot stars- Mike Meyers was coming off the second, and best, Austin Powers film and Cameron Diaz was at her most bankable- with a subversive, but fun premise, overshadowing Pixar’s similarly-themed Monster’s Inc. at the box office and with critics, as well.

But whereas the beginning of the last decade was a major source of elation for the studio, it was only four years later that a rot began to set into the enterprise, pushing once-formidable company to financial and distribution dependence on other studios.

Lights, Camera, Live Action

It hurt Dreamworks when The Island, a moderately better film than its reputation suggests, tanked in the U.S. (like Fox’s Kingdom of Heaven and Universal’s King Kong, also in 2005, it did better overseas than domestically). Perhaps the more cerebral opening was too lofty for its ultimate action leanings or maybe the later action diluted the resonance and power of its humanist intentions or maybe Ewan McGregor and Scarlet Johansson were not as commercially viable stars as expected. But the film- which Spielberg executive produced, finding the screenplay, hiring Bay and championing McGregor’s lead performance on release- was a major blow for the company (Spielberg was eventually vindicated by his faith in Bay with the phenomenal- and unexpected- financial success of Bay’s Transformers series, their first comic book-style franchise after the successful, but sporadic, Meet the Parents series). Together with animated flops Wallace and Gromit and Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (a film that lost the company over $100 million and brought them to the brink of bankruptcy), the mid-2000s was a far cry to the turn of the millennium, in which they not only won Best Picture for American Beauty (picking up the screenplay when Miramax turned it away), Gladiator and A Beautiful Mind, a very impressive streak, and, of course, they found astonishing critical and audience applause with Shrek.

Despite a slow start for the studio (the Animation division under-performed with costly disappointments like Prince of Egypt and The Road to El Dorado, Spielberg’s first film for Dreamworks was the slow, expensive history lesson Amistad whilst the studio wrongly relied on workmanlike filmmaker Mimi Leder for their first blockbusters, the bland, low impact George Clooney-Nicole Kidman spy vehicle The Peacemaker and the slow, unexciting disaster flick Deep Impact), the studio found extraordinary acclaim and recognition with nifty creative risks within seemingly broad studio filmmaking. Spielberg’s war film Saving Private Ryan, Sam Mendes’ satire American Beauty and Ridley Scott’s Gladiator were astonishingly successful in bridging classical, expensive studio filmmaking with new, exciting, world-wide filmmaking techniques. Ryan was The Longest Day for a new generation, but- through Spielberg’s absolutely brilliant eye for detail and talent for documentary-like editing style- created an astonishingly visceral experience that plunged the viewer into the very trenches of Normandy. Scott cited Spielberg as an influence in his visual approach to the Swords and Sandals epic Gladiator, creating a grim, truly photo-realistic depiction of Ancient Rome and deploying an impressionistic portrayal of the gladiatorial battles (and also creating an absolute superstar of the volatile, but gifted Russell Crowe in the process). Spielberg was also proud as punch when American Beauty scooped four of the five major awards at the Academy Awards, considering he swayed Alan Ball to sell his very hot screenplay to Dreamworks and handpicked untapped theatre director Sam Mendes for the project (the British director was hot off his West End and Broadway revival of Cabaret, which won four Tony Awards).

Of course, what originally looks like brilliant originality can languish if left stagnate (just ask ousted Universal bosses Marc Shmuger and David Linde: in 2007, they looked like a commercial genius for championing unexpected hits like Judd Apatow’s Knocked Up and wise commercial entities American Gangster and The Bourne Ultimatum, but were dumped last year after the underperforming Funny People and Land of the Lost and the constant delays of Green Zone and Robin Hood).

The studio- which founded its creative kudos with developing strong relationships between powerful directors and intelligent material- misfired with ambitious, but mismatched director-screenplay collaborations and expensive star vehicles. John Woo unfortunately toned down his natural flamboyance and impressionistic filmmaking style for the unfortunate Ben Affleck-enterprise Paycheck (which, if remembered at all, is only notable as being the Philip K. Dick that is not Blade Runner, Total Recall or Minority Report). The Terminal was once one of Hollywood’s most sought after screenplays from Andrew Niccol (The Truman Show, Gattaca), but a clumsy rewrite from Jeff Nathanson (Rush Hour 3, Catch Me if You Can) and Spielberg’s tendency to mawkish sentiment undermined Spielberg and Tom Hanks’ third collaboration at the studio.

Even the post-independent, Paramount-Universal period has suffered similar issues. It is somewhat sad that Clint Eastwood’s relatively inexpensive Letters from Iwo Jima scored critical adulation and Oscar attention when its more expensive companion piece Flags of Our Fathers suffered from comparisons to Ryan and mediocre business at the box office against The Prestige and The Departed. Spielberg took an executive producer credit on Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones- he originally envisioned the project for former protégé Robert Zemeckis (who is now busying himself with motion capture)- and offered The Lord of the Rings director tips during the editorial process, but the picture underperformed with audiences and critics alike (the film’s mixed reputation has done nothing to sour the relationship between Spielberg and Jackson, and the two are co-directing a series of motion-capture Tintin adaptations starring Jamie Bell, Andy Serkis and the Shaun of the Dead duo of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost). Joe Wright’s music drama The Soloist cost $60 million ($30 million more than his World War Two production Atonement), grossing only half of its budget, and Mendes could not replicate his American Beauty success with Revolutionary Road, despite the re-teaming of Titanic stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet.

Revenge of the Fallen

In 2008, Dreamworks found independent backing with Indian investment firm Reliance to allow for the company to regain financial independence, but- last year- sold its distribution rights to Touchstone Pictures (a particularly ironic series of events, given Katzenberg’s relationship with its parent company Disney).

In this deal, the company will not only distribute its animated features, but also its live action features, including D.J. Caruso’s science fiction film I Am Number Four, the Colin Farrell-vampire remake Fright Night, Spielberg’s World War One parable War Horse and Hugh Jackman’s robot-fighting film Real Steal.

Whether or not these 2011 films- along with other upcoming films under the Paramount banner like Transformers 3 and The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn– will succeed, it is difficult to know.

Andrew Moraitis