The news of DreamWorks Animation’s film How to Train Your Dragon 2 being nominated for an Academy Award is about the only good news to come out of the animation studio as of late. Variety is reporting that DreamWorks Animation (DWA) is cutting 500 jobs and closing their Bay Area animation division Pacific Data Images (PDI), which was acquired by DWA in 2000.
PDI’s first animated film was the 1998 film Antz. In 2001 PDI came out with Shrek which won the Academy Award for Best Animated feature in 2002. Among PDI/DreamWorks’s other animated work are the sequels to Shrek and the Madagascar films. PDI/DreamWorks also has received six technical Academy Awards.
Several of PDI/DreamWorks recent films have lost a considerable amount of money which explains both PDI’s closure and DWA’s need to reduce their workforce. Notably the How to Train Your Dragon films were not affiliated with PDI. The Employees of PDI have been given the option to relocate to Glendale, CA.
Among PDI’s recent box office disappointments are Mr. Peabody & Sherman and the Penguins of Madagascar. DWA’s CEO, Jeffrey Katzenberg, had the following to say about the companies restructure:
“I think we were top heavy and given that we are right sizing the entire operation and focusing the company on the businesses we are in today, rather than businesses we imagined we might be in, this is the right sizing that we need,” Katzenberg said.
DWA’s next animated feature release will be Home which arrives in theaters March 2015 both in the United States and the UK.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL18yMRIfoszH_jfuJoo8HCG1-lGjvfH2F&v=VuCo68oUI6U&x-yt-ts=1421914688&feature=player_embedded&x-yt-cl=84503534
Originally published January 24, 2015. Updated April 15, 2018.
