49 Fun Facts About DreamWorks

Which three men founded DreamWorks in October 1994?

Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen founded DreamWorks, whose SKG suffix takes their initials; Katzenberg had just been pushed out of Disney, and Geffen came from the music business.

What is the boy in the DreamWorks logo doing on the crescent moon?

Fishing: the boy dangles a line from the crescent moon; illustrator Robert Hunt painted the image and used his own son as the model.

What was DreamWorks Animation's first feature film, released in October 1998?

Antz, released October 2, 1998, beat Pixar's A Bug's Life to cinemas by about seven weeks, in one of the pettiest rivalries in animation history.

Which song from The Prince of Egypt won the Academy Award for Best Original Song?

When You Believe, written by Stephen Schwartz, won Best Original Song at the 1999 ceremony; Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey sang the pop version over the end credits.

Which British studio co-produced Chicken Run with DreamWorks in 2000?

Aardman Animations, the Bristol studio behind Wallace & Gromit, made Chicken Run with DreamWorks; the partnership ended after Flushed Away in 2006, three films into a five-film deal.

Chicken Run began as a spoof of which 1963 war film?

Mel Gibson voiced the American rooster Rocky, and the film became the highest-grossing stop-motion feature ever made.

Which comedian originally recorded almost all of Shrek's dialogue before his death?

Chris Farley had recorded most of Shrek's lines before he died in December 1997; Mike Myers took over and later re-recorded everything in a Scottish accent like his mother's bedtime-story voice.

Shrek won the very first Academy Award in which category?

Best Animated Feature was introduced at the 2002 ceremony, and Shrek beat Monsters, Inc. and Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius to take the first one.

Shrek is loosely based on a 1990 picture book by which author?

William Steig, the New Yorker cartoonist, published Shrek! in 1990; its ogre is far nastier than the film's, which joined the National Film Registry in 2020.

Which DreamWorks film was the highest-grossing animated film in the world when it was released in 2004?

Shrek 2 took about $920 million in its 2004 run, passing Finding Nemo to become the highest-grossing animated film of its time; Shark Tale followed the same year.

Which 2003 flop pushed DreamWorks to abandon hand-drawn animation?

Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas took only $80.8 million on a $60 million budget in 2003, and DreamWorks released no more hand-drawn features after it.

Which stop-motion film won DreamWorks its second Best Animated Feature Oscar?

The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Aardman's 2005 Wallace & Gromit feature, won Best Animated Feature at the March 2006 ceremony, DreamWorks' second win after Shrek.

Which company did DreamWorks acquire a 90 percent stake in and rename PDI/DreamWorks?

Pacific Data Images, the Redwood City studio that animated Antz and Shrek, became PDI/DreamWorks after the 2000 buyout; it was shut down in the 2015 restructuring.

In which year was DreamWorks Animation spun off as a separate publicly traded company?

Katzenberg ran it while Spielberg and Geffen stayed on as investors; the live-action studio was sold to Paramount a year later.

Which zoo do Alex, Marty, Melman and Gloria escape from in Madagascar?

The Central Park Zoo is home to Alex, Marty, Melman and Gloria, voiced by Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer and Jada Pinkett Smith; the trilogy grossed over $1.8 billion.

Which comedian voices King Julien the lemur in the Madagascar films?

Sacha Baron Cohen voices King Julien in the films; Danny Jacobs took over for TV's All Hail King Julien, and the lemur's anthem is Reel 2 Real's I Like to Move It.

Which actor voices Po in the Kung Fu Panda films?

Jack Black voices Po, the noodle-shop panda who becomes the Dragon Warrior; the first four films together grossed more than $2 billion.

Which martial-arts star voices Monkey in the Furious Five?

Jackie Chan voices Monkey; Angelina Jolie is Tigress, Seth Rogen is Mantis, Lucy Liu is Viper and David Cross is Crane.

Who is the villain of the first Kung Fu Panda?

Tai Lung, the snow leopard Shifu raised as a son, breaks out of Chorh-Gom prison to seize the Dragon Scroll; Gary Oldman, J.K. Simmons and Viola Davis voiced the sequels' villains.

How to Train Your Dragon is based on books by which British author?

Cressida Cowell wrote the How to Train Your Dragon books, beginning in 2003; the films depart heavily from them, where Toothless is a tiny, toothless garden dragon.

Which actor voices Hiccup in the animated How to Train Your Dragon films?

Jay Baruchel voices Hiccup across the animated trilogy, opposite Gerard Butler as his father Stoick and America Ferrera as Astrid.

Toothless belongs to which rare breed of dragon?

Night Fury: Toothless is the last known member of the breed, a sleek black dragon no Viking on Berk had ever seen up close; the trilogy earned over $1.6 billion.

Which company did DreamWorks buy for $155 million in 2012 to acquire Casper, Lassie and others?

Classic Media, bought for $155 million in July 2012, brought Casper and Lassie under the renamed DreamWorks Classics banner; the Trolls doll rights followed in April 2013.

Which streaming service signed a 2013 deal with DreamWorks for 300 hours of original content?

Netflix signed the June 2013 deal for 300 hours of DreamWorks originals, which produced series such as Dragons: Race to the Edge and All Hail King Julien.

Which company's NBCUniversal division agreed to buy DreamWorks Animation for $3.8 billion in April 2016?

Comcast, NBCUniversal's parent, announced the $3.8 billion deal in April 2016 and closed it that August, when Katzenberg departed; Hasbro had been in talks earlier.

Which was the first DreamWorks Animation film distributed by Universal Pictures?

How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, in February 2019, was the first DreamWorks Animation release through Universal; Paramount had distributed from 2006 to 2012 and 20th Century Fox from 2013 to 2017.

In which California city is DreamWorks Animation's campus?

Glendale: DreamWorks Animation's campus sits at 1000 Flower Street; Disney is in Burbank, Pixar in Emeryville and Sony in Culver City.

In Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, how many of his nine lives has Puss already lost?

Eight: a flashback montage shows Puss burning through eight of his nine lives, and Death, a wolf voiced by Wagner Moura, comes whistling for the last one.

Which actress voices Goldilocks, leader of the Three Bears crime family, in The Last Wish?

Florence Pugh voices Goldilocks; Olivia Colman, Ray Winstone and Samson Kayo voice the bears, and John Mulaney is Big Jack Horner.

The painterly look of Puss in Boots: The Last Wish was inspired by which other studio's film?

Into the Spider-Verse: director Joel Crawford cited Sony's 2018 film as the model for the stylised, painterly look; The Last Wish grossed about $484 million and earned an Oscar nomination.

The Wild Robot is based on a 2016 novel by which author-illustrator?

Peter Brown wrote and illustrated The Wild Robot in 2016; Chris Sanders' adaptation took about $334 million and nine Annie Awards.

Which Oscar-winning actress voices the robot Roz in The Wild Robot?

Lupita Nyong'o voices Roz; because the robot has no facial articulation, everything had to come through her voice, which she softens as Roz learns from the island's animals.

Who voices the Fairy Godmother in Shrek 2?

Jennifer Saunders voices the Fairy Godmother, who runs a potion factory and schemes to marry Fiona to her son Prince Charming; Saunders also sings Holding Out for a Hero.

Who voices Poppy in the Trolls films?

Anna Kendrick voices Poppy, and Justin Timberlake voices Branch; DreamWorks bought the Trolls doll rights from the Dam family in 2013.

Which DreamWorks film's opening credits made Smash Mouth's All Star inescapable?

Shrek opens with Smash Mouth's All Star, a temp track that tested so well in early screenings that DreamWorks kept it; the band also covers I'm a Believer at the wedding finale.

Which company nearly bought DreamWorks Animation for about $3.4 billion in 2014?

Hasbro entered talks a few weeks later, and neither deal happened; Comcast got the studio two years on.

Which was DreamWorks Animation's first feature made in stereoscopic 3-D?

Monsters vs. Aliens, released in March 2009, was DreamWorks Animation's first feature produced natively in stereoscopic 3-D, and it ran a 3-D ad during the 2009 Super Bowl.

Which 2023 DreamWorks film about a young sea monster grossed only about $46 million worldwide?

Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken opened on June 30, 2023, weeks after Pixar's Elemental and Disney's The Little Mermaid, and sank to about $46 million worldwide.

Who plays Hiccup in the 2025 live-action How to Train Your Dragon?

Mason Thames plays Hiccup in Dean DeBlois's June 2025 live-action remake, opposite Nico Parker as Astrid and Gerard Butler returning as Stoick.

Which comedian co-wrote Bee Movie and voices its hero, Barry B. Benson?

Jerry Seinfeld co-wrote Bee Movie and voices Barry B. Benson; Renée Zellweger voices Vanessa, the florist who befriends him.

Which actor provides the sparse narration for the title horse in Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron?

Matt Damon narrates as Spirit while Bryan Adams sings the songs; the filmmakers decided the horses would not speak, so real hoof beats and horse vocals were recorded instead.

Which songwriting duo wrote the songs for The Road to El Dorado in 2000?

Elton John and Tim Rice wrote the songs, with Hans Zimmer and John Powell on score; the film grossed $76 million on a roughly $95 million budget before finding a cult following.

Which A-list actor voices Metro Man, the Superman parody, in Megamind?

Brad Pitt voices Metro Man, whose costume and showmanship were modelled on Elvis Presley; Will Ferrell is Megamind and Tina Fey is Roxanne Ritchi.

Shark Tale held its 2004 world premiere in which city, on a giant inflatable screen?

Venice: Shark Tale premiered out of competition at the 2004 Venice Film Festival on a six-storey inflatable screen set up in Piazza San Marco.

Who voices the suit-wearing, briefcase-carrying infant in The Boss Baby?

Alec Baldwin voices the Boss Baby; he had already voiced the lion Makunga in Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa and Santa Claus in Rise of the Guardians for the studio.

Which action star voices RJ the raccoon in Over the Hedge?

Bruce Willis voices RJ; the 2006 film adapts the comic strip by Michael Fry and T. Lewis, with Garry Shandling as Verne the turtle.

The Bad Guys is loosely based on a children's book series by which Australian author?

Aaron Blabey's Bad Guys books, begun in 2015, inspired the film; its heist-movie look drew on Pulp Fiction, the Ocean's trilogy and the anime Lupin the Third.

Which Oscar-winning actor voices the red panda Master Shifu in Kung Fu Panda?

Dustin Hoffman voices Master Shifu, the red panda who trains Po; Hoffman won Oscars for Kramer vs. Kramer and Rain Man.

In which country did Megamind premiere on October 28, 2010, a week before its US release?

Russia: Megamind opened there on October 28, 2010, a week before its November 5 US release; it grossed $322 million on a $130 million budget.