Following the development of DreamWorks pictures in 1994, by co-founders Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, DreamWorks partnered with Pacific Data Images in 1996 to produce animated features. The first of these, "Antz," was released in 1998. In 2001, DreamWorks struck box-office gold with the unorthodox fairy tale "Shrek." Subsequently, DreamWorks Animation SKG was created in 2004 to handle animated projects for the studio.
While most films released by DreamWorks Animation studios have been popular with moviegoers, a couple have floundered.
Two low-performing entertainment vehicles released by DreamWorks Animation are "The Road to El Dorado" ($50,863,742) and "Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas" ($26,483,452).
As of 2010, five of its highest-performance entertainment vehicles, based on tabulations published by Box Office Mojo, are "Chicken Run" (garnering a domestic gross of $106,834,564), "Shrek" ($267,665,011), "Madagascar" ($193,595,521), "Kung Fu Panda" ($215,434,591) and "How to Train Your Dragon" ($208,000,613). Additionally, "Shrek" spawned high-performing sequels.
Fortune 500 cited DreamWorks Animation as one of the 100 best companies to work for in 2010. Employees receive paid sabbaticals, access to an on-site fitness center and the option to participate in a job-sharing program. Jeffery Katzenberg, CEO of DreamWorks Animation, indicates that the central mission shared by each of the company's employees is to "make movies for adults and the adult that exists in every child."
Early in 2007, DreamWorks Animation pledged that forthcoming releases would be produced in stereoscopic 3-D. An impetus for this decision was floundering DVD sales of animated and live-action releases, coupled with audience receptivity to the novelty of 3-D techniques. Katzenberg says the techniques enable storytellers "to put you into a story in a way that amplifies all of the feelings and emotions that he is creating or she is creating in her storytelling."
Producing animated films in stereoscopic 3-D, says Jim Mainard, head of production development for DreamWorks Animation, requires the use of specialized methods of animation. Before engaging in work on 3-D films, DreamWorks animators must attend training programs to become skilled in the process of providing necessary depth cues in a scene or to learn how to "turn to volumetric rendering in cases where we might have gotten away with a cheap camera trick or a blur before."
Most DreamWorks Animation projects have received favorable notice from critics, although the studios has been faulted for the similarities of its releases with those of Pixar films. For instance, Pixar came out with "A Bug's Life" in 1998, the same year as "Antz." Additionally, critics sometimes deride the studio's releases as being hampered by misguided corporate sensibilities. For example, Mark Halverson of Newsreview.com, laments that 2004's "Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas" set sail "with a rather mediocre and cliched script."