Does Disney Own Dreamworks? Or is it Disney Vs Dreamworks?
It’s not uncommon to mistake a Dreamworks Animation film for a Disney one. From The Prince of Egypt to Trolls, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Disney might have had a hand in those films. But does Dreamworks have anything to do with Disney? Let’s find out.
This question is best answered by exploring the fascinating origins of Dreamworks the company. Established in 1994, the company was original called Dreamworks SKG. Those three letters at the end stood for the three founding members of the company. Steven Spielberg, Jeffery Katzenberg and David Geffen.
Considering this video is about Dreamworks and the Walt Disney Company, we’re going to focus on Jeffery Katzenberg because, before co-founding Dreamworks, his job was chairman of Walt Disney studios. Katzenberg oversaw film and television production from 1984 to 1994 at Disney, a time that has been described as the Disney Renaissance. We're talking: Little Mermaid, beauty and the beast, Aladdin, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, the list goes on.
So, when Katzenberg left in 1994, was it an amicable break up and perhaps he started Dreamworks as a Subsidiary of Disney? No, no quite the opposite actually.
The story of how and why Katzenberg left Disney is fascinating and far too complex to go into during this video. But if you are interested, I can highly recommend this book, Disney War which is about Michael Eisner’s time as CEO of the Walt Disney Company.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, Jeffery Katzenberg had a huge falling out with then Disney CEO Michael Eisner and he resigned in the summer of 1994, a few months later, Dreamworks SKG was formed. The company would go on to produce or co-produce a number hugely successful animation and live action films, including: Saving Private Ryan, Gladiator, Kung-Fo Panda, Madagascar and, the iconic Shrek - a film which would be filled with a number of jokes aimed at Disney.
Since Dreamworks’ founding, it has been a powerful rival to Disney animation empire. Even winning the inaugural Best Animated Film category at the 2001 oscars beating out Disney Pixar’s Monsters Inc. But this rivalry was never more evident than during the debacle around A Bug’s Life and Antz. My word what a mess that was.
A Bug’s Life was a Disney Pixar film that came out in 1998. It was about a young, quirky male ant, that struggles to win the princess's hand while saving their society. Meanwhile Antz was a dreamwork film that came out in 1998 that was about a young, quirky male ant, that struggles to win the princess's hand while saving their society. Wait a minute.
A lot of this story is hearsay, so it’s difficult to know exactly what was true and what happened when. But Pixar claims they had pitched Disney the concept of A Bug’s Life before Katzenberg left the company. According to business week, it seems that the pitch could have been the day that Katzenberg left Disney.
Katzenberg denied hearing the A Bugs Life pitch and apparently, it was a DreamWorks executive who pitched the idea of Antz to him. In the end, Antz took $170 million at the box office and A Bug’s Life cleaned a dreamy $350 million. So Disney one at the box office. In my opinion they’re both great movies, well, actually I haven’t seen Antz in over a decade so I can’t really comment on that. But, I do believe that the similarities are probably a coincidence and there wasn’t anything sinister at play.
So, does Disney own Dreamworks? No, even though their histories are intertwined, Disney has never owned Dreamworks or even bid for it as far as my research suggests.
Thank you for watching this video. Got any other Disney related questions you’d like me to answer? Feel free to put them in the comments and perhaps I’ll make a video about them.
And if you’re interested in whether you can rent out Disneyland for the day, check out one of my most recent videos. Thanks again for watching and I’ll see you in the next video.
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