Blog commenter Foamy Squirrel brought up some stats from the DreamWorks Animation annual report, which got me to look it up. And besides the immediate response, it occurred to me that DWA is one of the very rare companies these days that is in film, public, and small enough that their annual report has actual facts and figures in detail, not just the best and worst noted so shareholders can giggle or gasp.
Here is a chart covering their last 5 years (a pop-up)
amit on: Review: Frozen 2 (spoiler-free)
movieman on: BYOB Fall Back, Film Forward
Christian on: BYOB Fall Back, Film Forward
movieman on: Review: Marriage Story (spoilers only in the broadest sense)
movieman on: BYOB Fall Back, Film Forward
movieman on: Review: Frozen 2 (spoiler-free)
YancySkancy on: Review: Little Women (no spoilers)
Hcat on: Why You Should Be Afraid Of The End Of The Paramount Decree
movieman on: BYOB Fall Back, Film Forward
movieman on: I Should Be Doing Box Office
Review: Little Women (no spoilers)
Why You Should Be Afraid Of The End Of The Paramount Decree
Review: Frozen 2 (spoiler-free)
Review: Marriage Story (spoilers only in the broadest sense)
see all »
[twitter-widget username="DavidPoland" hiderss="true" hidereplies="true" hidefrom="true" items="3" showts="60" title=" " targetBlank="true"][twitter-widget username="MCNTweets" hiderss="true" hidereplies="true" hidefrom="true" items="3" showts="60" title=" " targetBlank="true"]
It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?
So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.
And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.
There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.
I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.
So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.
But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”
My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher
“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.
~ David Simon
Too bad it’s all crap.
Where’s Direwolf? He handles the shareholder side of media much more than I do…
Out and busy last night so just getting to this.
I am long DWA in my long/short equity hedge fund which invests solely in media, entertainment and communications stocks. I am losing money on my DWA investment which I bought on the Tuesday after Dragon opened. Looked good for awhile but then Tribeca and bad reviews started a downward trend that accelerated with an earnings report that was only in online, accelerated further when the tracking numbers on Shrek 4 were leaked, and bottomed (hopefully) yesterday. A better than expected Memorial Day weekend would help but mid-week grosses have not been good enough to suggest that is likely (I am watching day-to-day declines as compared to prior Shreks).
I think DP gets the bull case on DWA. The company has become much more adept at developing revenue streams outside of theatrical and DVD. TV, Broadway, merchandising, and promotions related to theatrical releases are examples. In fact, I suspect that when we see initial financial results that include Shrek 4, we will be surprised that profitability is still close to estimates because of the sponsorship deals deals surrounding the film.
The goal of DWA management has been to build its base earnings levels and expand to two films original + sequel) each year to make the company’s financial results more predictable. I think they are doing a good job which is why I own the stock. Management has always doen a good job of mining revenue from its library, even on films that are deemed disappointments. Bee Moive woul dbe a good recent example. The moves to TV, Broadway, merchandising, video games, virtual worlds are all ways to expand the potential revenue.
I’d also add that I think DWA would be an excellent acqusition candidate though only Warners seems like a logical buyer and I doubt Bewkes wants to a deal of this size and even if he did he probably would not want JK in his nest.
DWA stock is interesting in that it really does trade off box office, both expectations and reality. It is a good example of how what matters in the short run on Wall Street is how things shape relative to expectations. The bull case long-term about broadening and stabilizing the revenue stream eventually gets noticed but can be overwhelmed in the short run.
Independent virtual worlds are a bit of a dog – the primary reason being that there’s no middleware, so every attempt has to be pretty much built from the ground up including the network (as opposed to, say, shooter games which tend to license the engines for 4-5 years after development and Blizzard who has established battle.net and are actively routing all their games through it).
It’s no surprise then that the big leap has been to integrate with established platforms like Facebook. Zynga, in particular, have been so effective in exploiting the platform that when they threatened to move away Facebook cut them in for a percentage of Facebook Dollars because they didn’t want to lose the users.
The only saving grace for DWA is they’re “only” spending ~$2mil in development – which is peanuts really (the granddaddy Everquest spent $8mil in development, and from statements by Bioware’s execs the new Star Wars one is costing in the region of $150mil). However, contrast with Farmville, which got up and running for less than $1mil and is projected to pull in a staggering $600mil this year.
I think for their other “other” ventures (broadway, theme park etc.) it’s primarily license-based, so DWA doesn’t really incur any costs beyond lawyers fees. Which is exactly what Marvel did to turn the company around following their near-bankruptcy until they decided to create their own movie studio (and inspired Hasbro to do the same).