DreamWorks Animation at 30: Paving a promising path into the future with “The Wild Robot.”

Filmmaker Chris Sanders had finally cracked “The Wild Robot.”

Peter Brown’s middle grade book about an intelligent robot living in the wild sat on the shelf at DreamWorks Animation for a while. Nobody had really figured it out. Then came Sanders, the man behind popular cartoons from Lilo and Stitch to How to Train Your Dragon.

However, his vision was different than usual: the story began without brisk dialogue and did not follow traditional beats. He also wanted to adopt a more illustrated style, combining analogue warmth with computer-generated imaging capabilities, which was finally technologically possible. Before he got too deep, he had to make sure the studio was on board.

“They said, ‘This is why we bought the book. “We want to do something different,” Sanders said. “One of the great strengths of DreamWorks is its willingness to try new things. You have to give everyone credit for staying the course.”

And it’s already paying off. “The Wild Robot” opened at No. 1 in theaters nationwide this weekend and received critical acclaim. Sanders didn’t know it at the time, but there was also something bigger at play: The Wild Robot was scheduled to be released to coincide with the studio’s 30th anniversary.

It wasn’t that long ago that DreamWorks was the new kid on the block. Founded by Jeffrey Katzenberg, Steven Spielberg and David Geffen, the upstart was the first new studio in 60 years in October 1994. Since its first animated release (“Antz” in 1998), DreamWorks Animation has released 49 feature films that have grossed more than $17 billion at the box office. They have major franchises including “Shrek,” which won the first Best Animated Feature Oscar, as well as “Kung Fu Panda” and “How to Train Your Dragon,” original and Emmy-winning television series.

Animation continues to be a major force at the box office. There are already three animated films in the top 10 global earners this year: Disney and Pixar’s “Inside Out 2” (US$1.6 billion), Illumination’s “Despicable Me 4” (US$953.3 million). -$) and “Kung Fu Panda 4” from DreamWorks ($549.1 million). ). Post-theatrical animated films are also regularly among the top performers on streaming services. Her wildly popular preschool series Gabby’s Dollhouse was the sixth most-watched streaming original series in 2023.

“Every studio has its ups and downs, but their franchises really spoke to me,” said Margie Cohn, who was named president of DreamWorks Animation in 2019. “They never spoke badly about children, they were films made for the whole family.” And they respected animation not as a genre but as a theatrical experience.”

Cohn, a Nickelodeon veteran, was recruited by Katzenberg in 2013 to build DWA’s television division, where she saw opportunities in groundbreaking partnerships with streaming companies like Netflix. Three years into her tenure, DWA, then essentially an independent studio, was acquired by NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast Corp., for $3.8 billion. Universal also has the animation studio Illumination under its banner. DWA and Illumination (think Minions and Despicable Me) operate largely separately, with Shrek being the only crossover. In her new role, Cohn oversees both film and television properties.

“You don’t come into the studio and then suddenly you have a slate. You have to build the plan, and that takes years,” Cohn said. “We just had to get back to those roots.”

“The Wild Robot” is an important part of this equation, visually and thematically different from what has come before and what is to come. There are three films on the schedule next year: “Dog Man,” based on Dav Pilkey’s graphic novels about a cop and a dog who become one after an injury, “The Bad Guys 2” and “Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie.” They then plan to release the first new Shrek film in over 15 years in July 2026.

The diversity of the program, the appeal to different audiences starting from preschool age and the lack of house style, said Cohn, are a great testament to the studio’s ambitions.

“It’s still an event for a family to go to the movies, but you have to give them a reason to do it,” Cohn said. “The bar for theater has been raised, but that makes us better. It also raises the bar for us.”

Critics and audiences have noticed the care taken in “The Wild Robot,” which is already in Oscar conversation. Sanders worked more closely with his actors than ever before, including star Lupita Nyong’o, who had the difficult task of voicing a robot, ROZZUM Unit 7134, or Roz, who has an emotional arc.

“There’s something timeless about it and I liked the core message that kindness is a survival tactic and that sometimes you have to go beyond your programming,” Nyong’o said. “But I wanted to know that he was looking for an employee and not an executor.”

Sanders is certain that the film wouldn’t be nearly what it is without the thoughtfulness with which she “deconstructed the architecture of Roz’s mind.”

The animation technology also allowed for more human involvement in the project than since “Lilo & Stitch,” which came out 22 years ago.

“Every square inch of this film was painted by a matte painter: every tree, every surface, every stone, every flower is a stroke of a human being,” said Sanders. “I started with animation when everything was hand-drawn and painted, and then CGI came along and we got so many wonderful things, including the ability to change lenses and move the camera around in space.” But then we have that Lost contact with much of the analog heat we used to have. Now we’ve put all that stuff back and kept all the wonderful things we got along the way. It’s a very exciting time.”

Another interesting thing happened to those involved in The Wild Robot. Nobody wanted it to end.

“Usually, even if you love the film, you’re proud of it and after three or four years you’re ready to be done. But that wasn’t the case in this case,” Sanders said. “Everyone went into this forest and fell in love with it and the characters and the story.”

Although no sequels have been officially announced, The Wild Robot is a three-book series and Sanders can’t wait to jump back into the woods. Animation, he said, had emerged from a tunnel in which it could maneuver more freely stylistically than it had in decades; He is extremely optimistic about the possibilities. So is DreamWorks Animation.

“We are really proud of where we are today on our 30th anniversary, and we have great hope for the future,” Cohn said. “We are still excited about the originals and hope and believe audiences will be too. So we’re going to push both originals and wildly imagined franchises and hopefully have another 30 years of doing that.”

Recent Posts