DreamWorks Animation Posts $19.6M Profit in 3Q 2009; No "Monsters vs. Aliens" Sequel

[DanielWray]

Wow! Bad times.

I personally thought the film didn't really stand out, it didn't have that cinema magic that I would expect from a film of it's.. Size and budget.

Anyway I hope they can come to some sort of internal rearrangement I.e. better script writers.

[robcat2075]

Doing the numbers, subtracting profit from revenue, they indicate a quarterly expense of about $117 Million to turn out movies.

(4 x 117 million)/2 movies per year = $234 million per film

That can't be right.

What other DWA products are they spending money to create?

[FloydBishop]

I'm no numbers person (far from it), but in addition to the production budget, there are also the advertising budgets, merchandising budgets, etc. It adds up quick, and in the case of such a large studio, it adds up to a lot.

[cookepuss]

I finally got around to seeing MvA last weekend. It wasn't bad. The characters were likable, the CG was solid, and there were some good gags. The real problems were:

1) There wasn't enough depth to the characters, beyond the Susan/Ginormica stuff. I never got the feeling that any of the other characters grew. For 3D characters, they were just too 2D. I couldn't connect with them on anything more than a superficial level.

2) The story could've benefited from the addition of a subplot, which would've also nicely padded the seemingly short runtime.

3) The alien antagonist simply didn't feel menacing enough. The threat wasn't imminent. Family toon or not, amp up the action and the "mwahahaha" factor of the baddie and some serious tension will develop.

4) Some sequences needed to be tighter and more focused. The Golden Gate Bridge scene ran too long or seemed that way because of a very low intensity level to the conflict. Susan VS the alien robot could've been a cool and engaging fight, much in the same way as Mr Incredible VS the robot in the volcano. However, it felt too bland. A trim here. A new scary robot trick there. That scene could've been fixed.

5) The other monsters were underutilized. Apart from Dr. Cockroach, I never really got a sense of their individual strengths. No big feeling for what made them particularly terrifying to the masses. Compared to a 50ft woman, giant robot, or clone army, their terror level was about as great as that of a sedated bunny.

6) Great interplay between Susan and the other monsters, but meh chemistry between the 3 primary ones. I felt that they knew each other, but not that they'd spent decades in the same prison complex together.

MvA is a good flick. Unfortunately, it offers a bit more for kids than it does for adults. I liked it much better than Pixar's worst, but not as much as Pixar's greats. It's fairly middle of the road. MvA had the looks, but not the heart.

[Bonedaddy]

The reason for the operating income being a bit wacky is that this is an "off" year, meaning we're only releasing 1 movie this year (MvA). Next year will be 3, and I personally like all of them better than MvA -- not speaking for the company, of course.

The one coming out in March, How To Train Your Dragon, has been flying under the radar for a bit, but expect that to change. I (and a lot of other people here) think it's the strongest movie DWA has come up with yet. Super proud of the work going into it.

(also: if you liked MvA at all, we just did a Halloween special for it, which is on... NBC, I think. Monsters Vs Aliens: Mutant Pumpkins From Outer Space. It's pretty cute.)

[Garibaldi]

(also: if you liked MvA at all, we just did a Halloween special for it, which is on... NBC, I think. Monsters Vs Aliens: Mutant Pumpkins From Outer Space. It's pretty cute.)

Saw it and thought it was great. The mutants were hysterical. And it was a fun Halloween storyline.

Nice work Jason!

[webhead]

There were things about MVA that I really liked. The animation, particularly in 3D, looked very nice on screen. I loved all the stuff with the President. I agree that many of the characters were not used, or developed enough. Dr. Cockroach, Insectosaurus, and Link did so little during most of the conflicts. Interesting characters who weren't utilized enough. It was a movie that had a lot of promise, but never totally reached it's full potential. I still enjoyed the film, nonetheless.

[Dennik]

They should start a TV commercial division.
As far as I can tell, TV ads are more profitable than film production.
Tough times demand versatility.

[frogspasm]

Nice work on the Halloween special Jason!
I hope to see the networks doing more of that kind of stuff in the future.
Someone needs to step up and fill the shoes of Rankin/Bass from our childhoods.

[kelgy]

Someone needs to step up and fill the shoes of Rankin/Bass from our childhoods.

**the other day I heard there were plans to do a cg version of Mad Monster Party.

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