DreamWorks Animation Bids For Character Rights-Holder Classic Media: NYT
According to Classic Media’s website, its properties include Casper The Friendly Ghost, Dick Tracy, Archie, He-Man, Gumby, Voltron and Felix The Cat among many others — all rich fodder to be mined for feature film treatment. The New York Times says DWA is leading the bidding with an offer of more than $150 million, a total that reportedly far surpasses other bidders and is scaring away potential buyers. The paper says Classic doesn’t necessarily own all rights to all the characters in its portfolio, which could complicate matters for any new owner, and some characters are in use elsewhere — like the Lone Ranger at Disney. DreamWorks Animation’s stock is down more than 8% this year. Its most recent release, Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted, has grossed $474 million globally and $204 million domestic since its June 8 opening.
Woah, DreamWorks is in for a surprise. These rights are tangled. A company I work with tried to negotiate the rights to a couple of properties a little while back, and it turned out that Classic didn’t even have the actual rights to certain properties and facets of the properties. Not sure what DreamWorks thinks they’re getting here.
It’s pretty clear things like Archie and He-Man were/are licensed from other companies. It’s also pretty clear DWA wants to be Disney, not just in movies.
I’ve looked through the Classic Library dozens of times. Every time they come around and show us the same exact catalogue. There is nothing worth exploiting at all.
Actually this is a perfect fit for DreamWorks Animation.
they do not own Gumby nor Felix the Cat
Classic has a bunch of crap. But good for them for getting Dreamworks to take it off their hands… Peabody and Sherman, Lone Ranger, Where’s Waldo were the BEST properties in their collection. And those are awfully C-level. Marvel it ain’t…
Surprised Disney didn’t go after Classic Media.
I guess Sony and DWA aren’t in distribution talks.
It looks like Katzenberg is looking for a quick way to increase Dreamworks’ catalogue of characters. Another attempt in his long list to make Dreamworks Animation more Disney-esque. It’s kind of his modus operandi.
Katzenberg worked to make Disney into the media giant it is. It is his philosophy. He left it behind him at Disney and he brought it to Dreamworks. Nothing about this move is an imitation of anything else but the methods he has used before.
He seemed fine with it just being an animation studio after it split from normal DreamWorks, which pretty much failed at being a conglomerate. It’s the focus on family entertainment that makes it seem more Disney-esque.
Still think Disney will go after the rest of the Henson Company one day.
Classic Media is complicated, ’cause while it displays Archie and Fat Albert on its website, they don’t actually own the characters, they just own the old Filmation cartoons. I’m not even a huge fan of a lot of Classic’s catalogue, but they’re instantly recognizable, and exploitable. Where’s Waldo, Bullwinkle, Casper, Lassie, even VeggieTales, the list goes on. I guess they’d be adapted into more half-assed DreamWorks movies, but why not?
Making another VeggieTales movie kind of feels like making another Garbage Pail Kids movie.
There’s nothing left at Henson to buy except Fraggle Rock and Storyteller.
I’m pretty sure they also own the “golden books” library of titles…. There’s a bunch of stuff in there s well. Many of their other properties do have rights issues….
SB