All Things DreamWorks

Seeking Alpha projects DreamWorks Animation's future ...

* DWA has a release schedule full of sequels, which historically translates to lots of cash flow.

* DWA's Chinese JV makes it much easier to distribute its movies in China and increases its box office take per movie.

* The new cost structure allows $20 million cost savings per movie.

* DWA's fast-growing TV segment will bring in significant revenues in the next few years. ...

And the cash flows for various feature releases in its sparkly past:

Feature -- Release Date -- Budget -- Gross

Antz -- 10/2/1998 -- $105,000,000 -- $171,757,863

Prince of Egypt -- 12/18/1998 -- $70,000,000 -- $218,613,188

Road to El Dorado -- 3/31/2000 -- $95,000,000 -- $76,432,727

Chicken Run -- 6/23/2000 -- $45,000,000 -- $224,834,564

Shrek -- 5/18/2001 -- $60,000,000 -- $484,409,218

Spirit -- 5/24/2002 -- $80,000,000 -- $122,563,539

Sinbad -- 7/2/2003 -- $60,000,000 -- $80,767,884

Shrek 2 -- 5/19/2004 -- $150,000,000 -- $919,838,758

Shark Tale -- 10/1/2004 -- $75,000,000 -- $367,275,019

Madagascar -- 5/27/2005 -- $75,000,000 -- $532,680,671

Shrek the Third -- 5/18/2007 -- $160,000,000 -- $798,958,162

Kung Fu Panda -- 6/6/2008 -- $130,000,000 -- $631,744,560 ...

Puss in Boots -- 10/28/2011 -- $130,000,000 -- $554,987,477

Madagascar 3 -- 6/8/2012 -- $145,000,000 -- $746,921,274

Rise/ Guardians -- 11/21/2012 -- $145,000,000 -- $306,941,670

The Croods -- 3/22/2013 -- $135,000,000 -- $587,204,668

The company has a shot at becoming a mid-sized conglomerate, with lots of different corporate pieces creating profit, but also of falling on its face and not going on to greater glory.

Maybe the sequel strategy will work. It's certainly true that every other feature cartoon company is using that corporate business plan, and since DWA kind of started it, there's no reason they can't cash in on sequelmania.

But it's up to the general public whether they succeed or not.