DreamWorks and their upcoming sequels

[Charles]

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AWN.com reports on what we can expect from DreamWorks in the way of sequels to their popular animated movies.

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Katzenberg Lays Out DreamWorks Sequel Plan

By Rick DeMott | Friday, December 3, 2010 at 4:00 pm | AWN News

In an interview with Empire, DreamWorks' Jeffrey Katzenberg laid out the company's plans for sequels to its hit franchises. He said MADAGASCAR would have at least one more and possibly a fourth installment. The characters will return to New York and deal with the transition back to urban life.

As for KUNG FU PANDA and HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON, DreamWorks has six and three films worked out, respectively. While there are eight books for DRAGON, the studio has at least two additional stories worked out with the chance for more.

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That's the whole shabang from AWN. Here's the link.

[Charles]

It's truly amazing to me, how news this good could be perceived so negatively by some of the blog commentators out there.

Let's see, according to the report...

DreamWorks has at least one more sequel for Madagascar planned, with another follow up to that as a possibility.

Kung Fu Panda has six sequels in line.

How To Train Your Dragon has three.

That comes to 10 films with maybe an addition one on top of those. And there's something wrong with that???

This isn't the era of cheapquels where Eisner was dumping mediocre follow ups to revered Disney classics. These are recent hits that have a following produced at a different studio that's doing high quality stuff, even on their sequels.

That means jobs for people in animation in an economy so bad only the Great Depression has been worse in its severity.

It's called developing a franchise, and it can be a healthy thing. There's plenty of original content being produced. Way more activity in that area than sequels. So relax and enjoy.

[EAllen]

And one film was an original idea, the other not a fairy tale.

DreamWorks deserves all the credit in the world for taking these kinds of risks, and they are rightfully mining these rich wells of opportunities. The money they make from these will in addition to retaining key talent for years to come, fund other daring ventures from which new franchise opportunities will likely spring forth.

At one time I was an ardent opponent of sequelizing and serializing everything--now, seeing what positive effects can come from such practices I am still not in favor of franchising every idea, but I recognize the business necessity of it and in this case with DreamWorks, wholeheartedly endorse it as long as it will lead to more films like How to Train Your Dragon and even some quirky efforts like Bee Movie from a couple years back. Which, as it looks to me, it ultimately will.