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Dreamworks Pictures, also commonly known as Dreamworks Movies is a relatively young studio, begun as recently as 1994.  It’s notable as the personal project of Stephen Spielberg (producer, director, writer), Jeffrey Katzenberg (producer and one-time chairman of Walt Disney) and David Geffen (record and film producer and philanthropist).

The project was kick started by Katzenberg’s resignation from his role at Disney.  He was introduced to Spielberg and together with David Geffen they each invested $33 million in the project.  The major investor though was Paul Allen, one of Microsoft’s original founders, who put $500 million into the new company.  He had no artistic input into the company but was probably attracted by the names involved, especially Spielberg.  It’s really only possible to make educated guesses about why the three moguls wanted to take on the project.  Most likely Spielberg wanted to run his own artistically creative studio while Katzenberg wanted to poke Disney in the eye and compete in the world of animation.  Meanwhile Geffen, a workaholic had recently recovered from cancer and was looking for a new project.

One of the concepts behind Dreamworks was the notion of bringing together various industries in one package – film producing, television producing, record producing and a way into the fledging internet industry.  It has to be said that the whole thing almost worked.  In the first ten or so years the studio produced several massively successful hits, particularly animations, including Shrek (2001), Antz (1998) and Madagascar (2005).  Unfortunately it also missed the mark with one or two productions, most notably Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (2003) which nearly bankrupted the studio.

So how could a company which had already had financial success almost fall over with one unsuccessful movie?  Perhaps the company was set up on a dream, a hope that the reputation of it’s owners would see them through without a proper strategy.

In the end though, everyone made some money.  The original owners sold their stakes to various parties and parts of the studio were spun off – for example Dreamworks Interactive was sold to Electronic Arts.  Spielberg is still involved but not as an owner.  Dreamworks still exists now as a going concern with different owners (Paul Allen still has a stake) but the name retains some of the magic of the early days.