By now a lot of us, if not all of us, have at least heard of DreamWorks SKG. What a lot of people might not know is that it was started up in 1998 by Steven Spielberg, David Geffen, and Jeffrey Katzenberg, who’d made his way over from Disney following a serious power struggle with Michael Eisner. DreamWorks was meant to be a slightly more edgy product that was for adults and for children at the same time. If you notice however some of the content was definitely geared at attracting adolescents and adults since it was a little too over the head of the average child. Over the years however DWA did manage to soften their edges and conform a bit more to the standards of kids films that had already been set. In truth there was nothing wrong with it, they started out getting top-level actors for many of their characters and rarely ever had a movie that didn’t have one or more talented actors voicing their characters. In fact a lot of their subject material, while softened up for younger viewers, was still a bit suspect at times since adults were able to pick out certain scenes that seemed a little too adult in nature for kids to fully comprehend.
In their first year they produced Antz and The Prince of Egypt, both of which were stand as stark contrast to Disney cartoons. They both came out with a PG rating and despite the claim that they had more violence and adult subject matter than Disney films it’s a bit of an argument if you really go back and look at some of the older films. While Antz was definitely grittier and far edgier than A Bug’s Life it was also like comparing Disney cartoons to Looney Tunes. One was definitely more raw and bound to push the envelope in its delivery and the other was cute and cuddly and didn’t do much to threaten the way that cartoons are supposed to be. One great example is during the war with the termites in Antz soldiers are shown being melted and even torn to pieces while in A Bug’s Life not a single ant is shown being dismembered or harmed in any way. In fact it’s safe to say that the body count in A Bug’s Life is as close to zero as a movie can possibly come. What was really amazing really was that Antz edged out A Bug’s Life at the box office by close to double. At this point DreamWorks had taken the first swing and hit it into the bleachers.
DWA did have a few flops like The Road to El Dorado and Titan A.E., but Disney had their ups and downs as well with films like Dinosaur, which barely made back it’s expensive budget, and Atlantis: The Lost Empire, which stalled out in the theaters. Disney and DWA were really going at it for a while when DWA came out with a title that would blow the competition away and create a stereotype for the company that would endure for quite some time. What was the movie they came out with? Oh yeah, that sweet little moneymaker called Shrek. A lot of people didn’t think the green ogre would do all that well but to be honest he hit the theaters and then hit the ground running. People took to Shrek so well that he became the flagship for DWA and a movie that was hard to beat. The films even took pot shots at the House of Mouse while crowds loved it and kept cheering for more. Shrek 2 and 3 actually went on to set records as Disney was reeling, looking for an answer to DWA that they just couldn’t find for the life of them.
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