Hey everyone. I am sure you all have heard the news regarding the DreamWorks/Universal acquisition this week, and if you haven’t, I will catch you up on it (though some of ti has been reported to death on the blog). Instead of writing it all on a blog post, I wanted to try something new, and made a video on it. Warning about it not being the highest quality (the mic is a bit iffy at times, and my voice is ANNOYING. There is a reason why no one has heard it in almost 4 years), as I am still new to this.
If you somehow managed to get through my weird voice, I will recap it here. One of the three Presidents of Warner Animation Group named Christopher deFaria was coerced by Universal to leave the company to be the President of DreamWorks Animation. This was after one of the co-presidents Mireille Soira stepped down last month, leaving Donna Langley by herself (until deFaria joins her).
The issue with this…. is on the Warner Animation Group side, because deFaria was one of the three Presidents of the company, and with Greg Silverman being ousted from the company last month, Courtenay Valenti is the only one left. As you can see, the executive management in the company is currently in limbo, and there are reports of them hiring an outsider to replace them.
Yesterday, a Universal representative released this statement, “Chris deFaria is ideally suited for this role. He has excellent creative instincts, a strong business sense, deep relationships and most importantly, a proven ability to harness technology to push the boundaries of animation and innovative, hybrid filmmaking.” Some think it is controversial due to the last part of it. I have seen some people claim that this “hybrid filmmaking” will involve some live-action techniques, and most of his work involves hybrid films.
Universal is doing their thing, and is finding any angle to try and one-up Disney, and I cannot be mad at them for it. They are trying to replicate the Pixar acquisition, but a lot more work is going to be done. The transitional period with this deal will probably conclude in 2018.
What do you all think about this?
animatedkid 