48 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 reached cinemas on October 2, 1998, almost eight weeks ahead of Pixar's rival insect film A Bug's Life, after a public feud between the two studios' bosses.

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

When You Believe won Stephen Schwartz the Oscar at the 1999 ceremony, where Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey performed their duet version live.

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?

The Great Escape was the starting joke, co-director Nick Park said, and the film nods to other escape movies too, among them The Flight of the Phoenix.

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, a New Yorker cartoonist, published Shrek! in 1990; his ogre breathes fire, marries a princess as ugly as he is, and lives 'horribly ever after'.

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

Shrek 2 took more than $900 million, passing Finding Nemo as the top-grossing animated film, a title Pixar only won back with Toy Story 3 in 2010.

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

Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas took about $80 million against a $60 million budget, a loss that led DreamWorks to drop hand-drawn features for computer animation.

Which stop-motion film won DreamWorks an Academy Award in 2006?

The Curse of the Were-Rabbit won its Oscar in March 2006, months after a warehouse fire destroyed thirty years of its makers' sets, props and models.

Which actor has voiced Puss in Boots since the swashbuckling cat first joined the Shrek films?

Antonio Banderas voices Puss, a send-up of his own Zorro, and he dubs the cat himself in the Spanish and Italian versions too.

After DreamWorks Animation was spun off in 2004, which studio bought the live-action DreamWorks?

Paramount did not keep it long: in 2008 the live-action studio walked away to become independent again, bankrolled by India's Reliance group.

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

The Central Park Zoo is their home until Marty the zebra slips out on his tenth birthday to see the wild, and the friends who chase him are caught with him.

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

Sacha Baron Cohen voices King Julien, reportedly a two-line part until his audition, when he improvised eight minutes of dialogue in an Indian accent.

Which actor voices Po in the Kung Fu Panda films?

Jack Black voices Po in a film first planned as a spoof of martial-arts movies, until its director chose to make a full-blooded kung fu action comedy instead.

Which martial-arts star voices Monkey, one of Kung Fu Panda's Furious Five?

Jackie Chan voices Monkey, and the Furious Five are modelled on five real kung fu styles, each named for an animal: tiger, crane, snake, praying mantis and monkey.

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 a Hiccup who was nearly much younger: the first version of the film stuck close to the children's book, until new directors took over and turned its boy hero into a teenager.

Toothless belongs to which rare breed of dragon?

Night Fury: Hiccup brings Toothless down with a bolas launcher during a raid, then cannot bring himself to kill the rare dragon and befriends it instead.

In Madagascar, Skipper, Kowalski, Rico and Private are a commando squad of which animals?

Penguins: the four plot a breakout to Antarctica in the first film and went on to star in a spin-off film of their own in 2014.

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 agreed to buy DreamWorks Animation for $3.8 billion in April 2016?

Comcast, parent of NBCUniversal, announced the $3.8 billion deal in April 2016 and closed it that August, after earlier talks with SoftBank and Hasbro had come to nothing.

Which 2019 film was the first DreamWorks Animation release distributed by Universal?

The Hidden World, the third How to Train Your Dragon film, reached US cinemas in February 2019; the studio had changed hands in 2016, but an earlier distribution deal had to run out first.

In which California city is DreamWorks Animation's campus?

Glendale: the campus sits in this Los Angeles suburb, and a live horse was once brought to the studio there so animators could study it for Spirit.

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

Florence Pugh voices Goldilocks, who sets out to wish for a human family and ends by deciding the bears who raised her are her true one.

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

Into the Spider-Verse set the example: the team gave The Last Wish a painterly look so it would resemble a fairy-tale storybook, breaking with the earlier Shrek films.

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

Peter Brown says the book grew from a sketch of a robot in a tree and one question: what would an intelligent robot do in the wilderness?

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

Lupita Nyong'o voices Roz; because the robot has no facial articulation, her emotions had to come through the voice, which Nyong'o let evolve as the story goes on.

Who voices the Fairy Godmother who schemes against Shrek and Fiona?

Jennifer Saunders voices the Fairy Godmother, who wants Fiona married to her son Prince Charming, and sings Holding Out for a Hero in character.

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 band's hit All Star plays over the opening credits of Shrek?

Smash Mouth's All Star was only a placeholder in early cuts, with an original song planned to replace it, until a studio boss said to keep it.

Which pop star voices Tip, the girl who befriends an alien, in the DreamWorks film Home?

Rihanna voices Tip and also made the film's soundtrack as a concept album, bringing in other artists to appear on it.

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 the 2025 remake, while Gerard Butler steps in front of the camera as Stoick, the chief he voiced in the animated films.

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

Jerry Seinfeld co-wrote Bee Movie and voices Barry; he set it in New York and worked from his office there over a video link to the animators in California.

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, and John sings them himself as an off-screen narrator; only It's Tough to Be a God goes to the film's two heroes.

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

Brad Pitt voices Metro Man, who fakes his own death because he is tired of playing the hero and would rather be a musician.

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; director Tom McGrath said the story spoke to him because, with an older brother, he was the boss baby of his own family.

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

Bruce Willis voices RJ, a part first given to Jim Carrey, who dropped out in 2004.

Which DreamWorks heist comedy is based on a children's book series by Australian author Aaron Blabey?

The Bad Guys drew on Pulp Fiction, the Ocean's films and the anime Lupin the Third to turn Blabey's books into a caper.

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

Dustin Hoffman voices Master Shifu; reluctant at first to do an animated film, he ended up coaching his panda co-star through a key scene.

Which villain's purge of fairy-tale creatures sends them flooding into Shrek's swamp?

Lord Farquaad exiles the creatures to tidy up his realm of Duloc, then sends Shrek to rescue Princess Fiona in return for getting the swamp back.