The Comcast/DreamWorks Deal: Speculation on the Outcome

On April 28, it was announced that Comcast had purchased DreamWorks Animation for $3.8 billion. This announcement came as a surprise to many as the two companies had reportedly only been in talks for approximately 2 weeks regarding the deal. The deal is expected to take full effect by the end of the year and Jeffrey Katzenberg is stepping down as CEO of DreamWorks Animation. Simply put DreamWorks Animation remains on a tumultuous path full of uncertainty regarding its future.

This is a good thing...right?

It's been well known that DreamWorks Animation has had financial struggles ever since 2012 when they posted a financial loss after the release of Rise of the Guardians. Since then the studio has had difficulty toeing the financial line, going so far as to shutter PDI back in January 2015 to downsizing features to one film release a year. While the changes have helped, DreamWorks Animation was still having difficulty staying back on their feet. This deal marks a sharp turning point for the studio as now they fall under a large entertainment family of companies that includes Fandango and NBCUniversal.

So what does the deal mean for DreamWorks Animation exactly? That remains to be seen as the deal takes effect and time moves on. Thus it is interesting to at least speculate about what we may see occur. Layoffs at the studio may not be far behind, especially at the features branch as we could see the studio focus more on their television production rather than feature films. Hopefully, that doesn't occur as PDI was painful enough to see closed down with their multitude of layoffs. Furthermore, the perks of being a DreamWorks employee, most notably the free (and super tasty!) lunches, could be downsized or cut entirely in order to further slash costs. Hope those lunches don't go away, anyone who has had the pleasure of enjoying lunch at the DreamWorks Animation cafeteria knows that they are awesome.

A potentially good thing that could come out of this deal
is more representation of the DreamWorks franchises
at Universal parks. How to Train Your Dragon ride anyone?

While there is a great deal of fear and uncertainty surrounding the deal, some good things may come out of it as well. We could see more representation of DreamWorks Animation properties at Universal theme parks and the television shows of DreamWorks could reach a wider audience if aired on a cable television channel property of Comcast in addition to Netflix, that is if they don't pull the shows from Netflix completely. I for one would be thrilled to see rides and meet and greets based off of DreamWorks Animation franchises at Universal parks. Could you imagine flying with Hiccup and Toothless in a 4D experience or meeting Jack Frost during the winter holiday season? Time to hit up the suggestion box at DreamWorks!

All in all, patience will be key in seeing how this deal plays out and whether it ends up truly being beneficial to DreamWorks Animation and its employees. Here's hoping that everything turns out okay and that DreamWorks Animation is able to become a successful powerhouse animation studio once again.