The Den of Geek thinks that it knows what conglom soon goes sniffing after DWA.
... [A]nimation is, bizarrely, something of a Warner Bros weakspot. On the small screen, with the likes of Looney Tunes and Scooby Doo, it's got no shortage of good properties, but big screen animation has been less successful. How many people do you know bought a ticket to The Ant Bully? DreamWorks Animation, while not cheap, would instantly give Warner Bros another dimension to its movie business ...
There's really only two possible suitors.
Viacom already distributes DreamWorks Animation product, and Nickelodeon Cartoons produces Penguins of Madagasca and (shortly) Kung Fu Panda, the TeeVee series (or whatever it's called.) I would speculate that Viacom could end up buying DWA if it comes up with the scratch ($4.5-$6.5 billion). But does Viacom have that kind of money?
Good question. And I don't know the answer.
Time-Warner has the deep pockets and a hole to fill, so it's the only other possible candidate. Everybody else -- Fox/Blue Sky Animation, Sony/Sony Pictures Animation-Imageworks, Disney/Pixar -- already has a dance partner.
I'm guessing that some kind of marriage happens in the next twelve to twenty-four months. I know that Jeffrey has loudly proclaimed tht his baliwick isn't for sale ... but I rmemeber being at Disney a quarter century ago and hearing him loudly proclaim that Project X was terrific and blew him away ... only to see Project X get deep-sixed a few weeks later.
Nothing is immutable. Especially when the price is right.
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..and Project X was?
There were several. But one was a Goofy featurette that Jeffrey and Michael praised to the skies, then cancelled.
A Disney director, then a story person, said to me: "You know, if they say it's the greatest thing they've ever seen in their lives, that means that MAYBE they'll consider making it."
My point being, perhaps Hollywood execs mean what they say when the words come out of their mouths, but everything is subject to change.
If the executives tell you your project is great, you'd best start cleaning out your office.
It's not that executives lie -- they simply have no concept of truth.
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