Gephyrophillia | Watch This Space #77

Originally Posted on 07/22/2003 by Jeff Harris

Remember what I had on the site on the front page over the weekend? It was basically my feelings about the critics who claim that 2D animation is dead because Sinbad (and other 2D films) didn't fare well in theaters as well as my theory of why they didn't do well. It made sense when I wrote it, but apparently people still don't get it.

Add Dreamworks Pictures to the list of those that don't "get" it.

Tuesday, Dreamworks announced that Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, the studio's fifth traditionally-animated film (fourth released theatrically), was going to be the studio's last traditional animated feature. What's worse is that Jeffrey Katzenberg, the guy who built the modern Disney monster with films like the Oscar-nominated Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and the soon-to-be-second-highest-grossing-animated-film-of-all-time The Lion King, is now convienced that traditional animation is a thing of the past.

*rubs temples*

Granted Sinbad didn't do well in its theatrical run, making less than 33% of its production costs overall. That should have been expected when the studio decided to open the film the same weekend as an unneeded, unnecessary, overhyped movie and Legally Blonde 2, both of which aren't making that much money anyway. They should have been prepared for failure from day one. However, with the gnat-lengthed attention span of the Dreamworks execs, they decided to throw in the towel on the one division they were seemingly proud of when they launched the studio almost a decade ago. When Spielberg, Katzenberg, and Geffen announced the creation of the studio (so that's where the SKG comes from), they made it a point to create a traditional film studio, a record company, and an animation department, building a beautiful establishment just for the artists, many of whom came from Disney. However, in the middle of their excitement, they bought Pacific Data Images, the computer-animation studio whose major contributions before animating Antz were designing network campaign graphics and creating a 3D Homer Simpson for a Halloween episode of, um, some show. To the traditional animators, they must've felt that the end was near, or, perhaps they were just oblivious to the fact. And yet, besides the commercial failures of The Prince of Egypt, The Road to El Dorado, and Spirit, they kept on going. Still, the execs loved the color green with Shrek's financial success and Oscar win. And in the end, apparently green mattered more to Dreamworks than tradition, and that's why the traditional animation department is ceasing to exist, according to the New York Times.

It's not the first time Dreamworks shut down an animation department. After the deal with ABC collapsed thanks to Disney's purchase of the network and the two series that failed to attract audiences (Toonsylvania and Invasion: America [Dreamworks' third animated series, Alienators: Evolution, wasn't done in-house, but rather at DiC, but the result was the same]), Dreamworks closed down their television animation department. What's even sadder is that they really didn't give the division a chance. You can't really judge a studio by two series. In three, maybe four years, they could have been a dominant American television studio, especially if they stood by the animators and the creators instead of just giving up. Same for the theatrical unit. If they just developed future franchises and stopped trying to emulate the competitors, perhaps Dreamworks Animation wouldn't have to shut down the traditional department. And if the 3D movies don't continue to make money (that mafia-under-the-sea movie doesn't sound all that appealing to me), will Dreamworks close down shop at the 3D division? Doubt it, because the people are sheep and will flock to any display of pixels that gets heavily promoted that comes out. I mean, if Disney or Warner Bros. gave up every time they had a dud, do you think they'd be here today?

Dreamworks just gave in to their pocketbooks rather than continuing to follow their dreams, and that's pretty damned sad.

*end transmission*

Jeff Harris
The Bridge Creator/Webmaster
July 22, 2003