Archive notice: This article was originally published on June 2, 2009. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
DreamWorks Animation SKG announced plans to release five animated films in cinemas within two years. Its existing schedule of two films per year will be supplemented by an additional title every other year. The company also announced its slate through 2012: eight animated films comprising five new productions and three sequels from the Shrek, Madagascar and Kung Fu Panda franchises.
DreamWorks Animation’s forthcoming distribution slate includes:
The adventure How to Train Your Dragon, based on Cressida Cowell’s book of the same name, opens in German cinemas on March 25, 2010. Set in a mythical world of powerful Vikings and wild dragons, it follows a boy for whom fighting dragons is part of everyday life until he meets an injured dragon that turns his world upside down.
Shrek Forever After is the animated adventure of summer 2010. The familiar cast including Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz and Antonio Banderas again voices the colourful characters.
Oobermind, originally titled Master Mind, stars Robert Downey Jr. and Tina Fey and arrives in cinemas in December 2010. Tom McGrath, director of Madagascar and Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, directs, with Ben Stiller and Stuart Cornfeld as executive producers. After villain Oobermind finally defeats his arch-enemy Metro Man, he discovers that life without a rival is rather monotonous and creates a new opponent — who would also prefer to be evil rather than good.
In Kung Fu Panda: The Kaboom of Doom, the energetic panda returns to screens in June 2011. Po and his friends are again voiced by Jack Black, Angelina Jolie, Dustin Hoffman, Jackie Chan, Seth Rogen, Lucy Liu and David Cross. A new villain with a mysterious weapon threatens the existence of kung fu. Po and the Furious Five do everything they can to protect their knowledge, but first Po must confront his long-forgotten past.
The Guardians, a working title based on forthcoming books by William Joyce, arrives in German cinemas at the end of 2011. Five unusual heroes — Jack Frost, North, also known as Santa Claus, Bunnymund the Easter Bunny, Tooth the Tooth Fairy and Sandy the Sandman — unite to stop the ancient spirit Pitch, the Boogeyman, from destroying the world and plunging it into complete darkness.
Spring 2012 brings Puss in Boots, a working title starring Antonio Banderas as the charming cat and Salma Hayek as his friend Kitty. The Shrek universe’s most popular character draws swords and breaks hearts in an adventure that sees Puss, the genius Humpty Dumpty and clever Kitty seek the famous goose that lays golden eggs.
DreamWorks Animation was also developing three projects for German cinema release in 2012. The first, The Croods, follows an old-fashioned caveman and his family as they battle wild, seemingly untameable prehistoric flora and fauna in search of a new home. When they meet an extraordinarily advanced caveman, the civilised family realises their journey so far was merely a stroll.
The second production, Truckers, is based on fantasy author Terry Pratchett’s Bromeliad trilogy. It follows small creatures living beneath a shopping centre who must seek a new home when the building faces demolition, discovering on their journey that their true home is literally out of this world.
Finally, in the third project, Super Secret Ghost Project, DreamWorks Animation intends to show audiences ghosts unlike any they have seen before.
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